© Marietta Monitor
9 Dec 1994, Page 4
Services for Billy Ray Hill, 63, were Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. in the
Geo. J. Carroll & Son Funeral Home, Gainesville, Texas.
Mr.
Hill was born October 23, 1931, in Marietta, the son of Francis M.
and Jessie Mayes Hill, and died December 3, 1994, at his home in
Fort Worth, Texas.
Mr. Hill was a Tarrant County nightclub operator, former Cooke County Democratic Party chairman, radio station owner and retired captain with the Texas Army National Guard. In Fort Worth, Mr. Hill helped organize the Club and Tavern Operators Association and in 1985 donated space for the Fort Worth Counseling Center, the forerunner of the county’s AIDS Outreach Center which is now a United Way agency. In Gainesville he was best known as a real estate broker who sold farm, ranch and commercial properties across North Central Texas. Mr. Hill was a former president of the Gainesville Board of Realtors, a former director of the Gainesville Boys Club and the West Texas Chamber of Commerce.
A retired soldier, Mr. Hill spent four years on active duty and 18 years in the Texas Army National Guard as an officer in the Gainesville unit. In the political realm, he was campaign chairman for former U.S. Rep. Graham Purcell, D-Wichita Falls, and was elected to three terms as Cooke County Democratic Party chairman, serving until 1978. Mr. Hill was a director of Arlington National Bank and later president and board chairman of First Savings and Loan of Bowie. A 1949 graduate of Gainesville High School, Mr. Hill attended Cooke County Junior College and became a licensed realtor in 1954.
He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Maggie Lee Hill of Gainesville; two sons, Jesse Frank Hill of Philadelphia and Roger Ray Hill of Killeen; a daughter, Margaret Ann Willoughby of Fort Worth; a step-daughter, Billie Fennell of Gainesville; and six grandchildren.
Interment was in Lakeview Cemetery under the direction of Geo. J. Carroll & Son Funeral Home.
Serving as pallbearers were Bud Hill, Bunky Mayes, Alfred C. Martin, J.W. Jones, Scott Jones and Paul Wallace.