Mr. Cecil William (Bill) Ratliff

Ratliff, Mr Cecil William ( Bill) , a longtime resident of Coosada, AL, passed into Heaven on September 28, 2015 with his family by his side. Bill was born on November 24, 1935 in Bloomington, Indiana to Mary Baxter Ratliff and John Ratliff, both deceased. His legacy will live on in the hearts and minds of his surviving family, including his wife of 60 years, Minnie Drury Ratliff; son, Greg Ratliff,who resides in Lima, OH, with his wife, Sharon; daughter, Michelle Lisenby, who lives in Millbrook, AL, with her husband, Raymond. Bill loved and enjoyed his 5 grandchildren, including Brian Ratliff and his wife Kim; Ashley Hensley and her husband Cody; Justin Lisenby and his wife Amanda; Sean Ratliff and Katie Ratliff. He also leaves his sister, Gerri Atkinson and her husband Bob, and his brother, Mike Ratliff and his wife Charla. Bill retired from the US Navy after 26 years of distinguished service on numerous ships and shore station. He enjoyed serving our great nation on many overseas assignments and ended his career on the USS Orion. It was his greatest military honor to have trained a class of recruits that were named a Hall of Fame Company, a rare honor no class of recruits had achieved for 14 years prior. After his military retirement, Bill had another distinguished career working for Jim Wilson and Associates for 23 years. Upon retirement from JW&A, he and his family remained in the Coosada area. Bill served as a councilman on the Coosada Town Council and enjoyed attending worship and fellowship as a member of Coosada Baptist Church. Bill was well known in the Montgomery area for his outdoor Christmas light display, which he proudly began installing each October and lit each Thanksgiving. Bill was a friendly, outgoing man who never met a stranger and greeted all with a handshake or a hug. Even as dementia took control of his life, he continued to smile and enjoy the company of all that surrounded him. Bill was an outstanding man who loved waking up each day and enjoying his life to the fullest. He inspired many people in both his personal life , where he and his wife display a model relationship that all couples could aspire to and in his professional life, where he always set and extremely high bar for professional performance and then continued to raise that bar.As he approached his disease and eventual death, he felt blessed by his life he had led and looked forward to arriving in Heaven. Funeral services will be held on Saturday, October 3, 2015, at Brookside Funeral Home Chapel, 3360 Brookside Dr., Millbrook, AL 36054. Entombment will follow with military honors. A visitation with the family will be held from 10 - 11 am, with the Celebration of Life following at 11 am. Pallbearers will be William Johnson, Aidan Pitts, Keith Helms, Jason Weldon, Jerrell Durrance and Kenneth McCroan. Flowers will be accepted, however the family prefers a donation to either Alzheimer's Research Foundation (http://m.alz.org/donate.asp) or the Coosada Baptist church Building Fund, P.O. Box 99, Coosada, AL 36020.Brookside Funeral Home of Millbrook, AL directing