Beech Tree News Network

The Butler County Chapter DAR held their Annual Veterans' Breakfast on Saturday morning, November 9 at the Butler County High School.  Regent Jane Eaton-Henderson welcomed the large group of veterans, family, and friends.  Lois Russ, flag chairman, led the pledge and Chaplin Linda Wood gave the invocation.  After breakfast Jennifer Odle recognized the 2013 Veterans of the Year, William L. “Bill” Cook and Presley B. “Pres” McCoy. 

Presley Burton McCoy was born August 15, 1925 in Butler County to Edward Burton and Murnie Ann Brown McCoy.  He married Virginia Hudson on April 12, 1947.  She passed away on September 24, 2013.  He has one daughter Mary Ann who married Rickey Lockhart.  Mr. McCoy has three grandchildren and two great grandchildren. 
Presley was in the Army from 1944-1946 during World War II.  He was in the Mountain Rangers and got his training in Florida (an odd place for a Mountain Ranger to train.  They trained in the swamp with lots of snakes and other wildlife. 
He served in Germany, Italy, and France.  When he got to Italy, he came down with the mumps and had to stay in the hospital for two weeks.  When he got back to his company, the majority of the men had been wounded or killed as they fought all the way across Southern Italy to Northern Italy. 
A woman who was in Germany during the occupation, told Presley that the Germans blew up a bridge before leaving just as the Americans was arriving.  The American engineers put up a pontoon bridge in thirty minutes so they could cross and this put them behind the Germans. 
Presley was in a fox hole that the Germans had dug and the Germans were firing mortars into the area.  Pres said something told him to move.  He moved and dug his own fox hole.  Just as he finished the Germans hit the fox hole that he had been in and he could have been killed that day if he hadn’t listened to that voice that said move.
When the war was over he was sent to France from there to New York City, where he took a train home to Kentucky.  Presley told a friend that he promised the Lord that if he got home safe to Butler County that he would never be out of the county again after dark.  And to his knowledge it only happened once or twice in all the years since he got home in 1946.

William “Bill” Cook told his own life story, “ First of all, I want to thank the Butler County Chapter of NSDAR for choosing me as Veteran of the Year.  I realize though, that there are many more veterans in Butler County who are more worthy of his honor, than I am.
Here are some bits of information about me that most people do not know, since most of my life has been spent away from Butler County.  I was very glad to get back here in 1953.  I was born in Butler County on January 24, 1931 to J. Guy and Lena Cook, in the old brick house as you start down the hill to the Morgantown Ferry.  We left Morgantown some five years later and went to Scottsville, where my dad worked for the Allen County News, owned by the Herb Ward family.  Herb was the brother of Dewey Ward, well known in Butler County.
I went to school in Allen County until my freshman year.  I can remember the Army troops on maneuvers, being stationed in Allen County during World War II.  My mother cooked several meals for the soldiers, mostly from Pennsylvania.  I can remember several nights, when I had soldiers sleeping in bed with me; rather than their tents.  We enjoyed helping them and getting to know about their lives.
We left Scottsville after my freshman year and went to Lafayette, TN., where my Dad was employed by the Macon County Times.  I graduated from Macon County High, and then went to work for the Macon County Lumber Company, then later the Bohanan Construction Company.  I helped build several elementary schools in Macon County and surrounding areas. 
My Uncle Barkley Waddle and I were building a garage for my parents, when Mary and her sister-in-law came walking home from work.  Uncle Barkley said to me, “Billy, you have been going all around this area courting girls and look here at one under your nose.”  Three months later we were married in Corinth, Mississippi on November 11, 1950.  We left a football game on Friday with so no one would suspect what we were up to.  I drove all night to Corinth where, during the WWII the courthouse was never closed.  We got our marriage license and found an old retired Baptist preacher to marry us.  On Monday we will be married 63 years, and I think I will keep her.
We came back to Lafayette two days later, and in January 1951 as the Korean War began to develop, me and my best friend, David Oakley, joined the United States Air Force.  We boarded a train in Nashville, with a host of volunteers and went to Lockland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, for basic training.  After basic I was sent to Denver, Colorado, for technical training.  Then to Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, where I was in charge of a section that initiated the records for all of the doctors and nurses who were coming into the Air Force during the Korean War.
I was honorably discharged on October 28, 1953, went back to Lafayette, TN., then to Morgantown and purchased the “Green River Republican from Otis White.  I had “Bill’s Kolyum” in the paper and wrote mostly about the changes in Morgantown and Butler County.  Later, with a slate composed of Troy Lee Tuck, Dr. Guy Barnette, Willie Green Gaskey, Carl McKinney, and myself, we ran for the Town Board and we were elected.
Mr. Pearl McKinney was our State Representative initiated the paper work for Morgantown to become a Fifth Class City, and then we were City Councilmen.  In 1957, I surrendered to the call of the Gospel Ministry, something that I had struggled with for several years, before making it public at the First Baptist Church of Morgantown.  I was ordained in 1958.  Since that time I have been pastor of Woodbury Baptist Mission, Huntsville Baptist, Bethel Baptist, Clarkson Baptist, Penrod Baptist, and Aberdeen Baptist Church.  I also spent 17 years working with the young men at the Green River School.  I retired when I turned 65.
Mary and I have two sons, Danny, a retired land surveyor, David, a farmer.  One granddaughter Jayme and her husband Nick McWhorter of Bowling Green and a new great granddaughter Meredith Jaymes.
When we sold the Green River Republican we purchased the Troy and Wilma Tuck Hardware Store, which we re-named Cookie’s S & T Hardware.  After several years we closed the store.  Since my retirement from the pastorate I have been pastor for the Big Muddy Baptist Church and Union Baptist Church.  I praise God for the blessings of having many precious memories of friends and pastors that I have worked with down through the years.  May God bless you is my earnest prayer.