Billy Richard Pitts, Jr.

Billy "Bill" Richard Pitts, Jr., of Charlotte, NC passed away March 27, 2024, after a valiant, year-long battle with lung cancer and multiple strokes.

He was born in Winston-Salem, NC on December 4, 1951 to the late Ellen Marie Holt and Billy Richard Pitts, Sr. and was the eldest of his three siblings, Jimmy Brown, Tommy Brown & Tammy Brown Pegram.

Bill's growing-up years were mostly spent in and around Winston-Salem, a number of them in the old family home on Leona Street, built by his great grandfather, Chat McCann. His mother, grandmother Lera Orander Holt and stepfather Richard Brown, along with his brothers and sisters, were especially dear to him.

Their home was full of love, laughter and many, many animals! He always regarded "Lassie," the family dog, as his favorite. He loved playing outside, especially on his Aunt Helen's farm in South Carolina, where he and his cousins would fish and camp. He also fondly recalled summer jobs picking tobacco on nearby farms.

He attended Parkland High School in Winston-Salem where he played basketball and was quarterback for the football team. After high school, he attended Forsyth Technical College and received his license in Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning.

Bill began a distinguished, forty-five-year career in the HVAC industry, with Wall-Turner Company in Winston-Salem, where he met his dear, long-time friend, Ron Wagner. He moved into the commercial side of the industry when he joined Westinghouse Electric Corporation in the mid-1970's (later McQuay, then Daikin Corporations), servicing large-scale chillers for countless schools, hospitals, hotels, manufacturing plants and nuclear facilities throughout the Southeastern US. His former employer wrote that he was an expert in repairing advanced HVAC systems and was known far and wide as a "chiller guru." Another stated that he was one of the best chiller mechanics in the country. He was one of the first in his industry to employ controls systems to remotely operate HVAC equipment and was largely self-taught in this area, despite the high degree of complexity of such work. He was also asked to travel to Sardinia, Italy to do specialized work on the USS Orion, the same ship his Uncle, Dewey Holt, served on during the Korean War. That remained his highest career honor and adventure-filled accomplishment.

Bill was also a mentor who shared his time and expertise generously with many technicians through the trainings he led, as well as countless phone calls, regardless of the day, time or convenience. He went about his work all hours of the day and night, in freezing or scorching elements to get the job done right, sacrificing much of his personal time and comfort to live up to the standard of excellence for which he held himself accountable. He truly loved what he did and the people he worked with and for, continuing to advise others in the industry for several years following his retirement, never failing to help them, always with a smile on his face.

He was a Benjamin Franklin of sorts, with a brilliant, ever-inquiring, engineering mind, always in search of learning and achieving more. He gardened, was interested in the weather, history, reading, cooking, playing guitar, discussing politics and ideas, and tinkering in his workshop, often fashioning his own tools to accomplish a task. He was a well-respected member of Bethlehem United Methodist Church in Advance, operating the sound system there for at least ten years, before moving to Charlotte.

He was unpretentious and held little regard for luxury or "things," his humble beginnings keeping him well-anchored to the truer gold in life. He never met a stranger and there wasn't an insincere bone in his body. If it involved watching a thunderstorm on the front porch, friendly conversation with way-back sayings, Pulliam's Barbeque, pinto beans with chow chow, Tar Heel basketball, a game of chess, a cold beer, seventies music or old friends, he was there with bells on!

Bill had an exceptional long-term memory and a natural story-teller's way, often regaling friends and family with tales about his early years: how he once fell forty feet while building a treehouse with friends, only escaping the sawed-off point of a pine tree stump by a few inches; about the family's accidental pet rooster, "Red" - a "resurrected" Easter biddy who lived more years than anyone cared for him to, forcing all to duck and run for cover just in the simple act of walking out the front door; selling watermelons to finance his hitchhiking trip to the Atlanta Music Festival (the "Woodstock" of the South); his glory days rafting down the Yadkin River with old softball buddies, and countless more!

Although his work & other pursuits were extremely important to him, Bill's family and friends were what truly held his heart. Despite his grueling work schedule, he somehow always summoned the time and energy to take his daughters camping and to church, teach them to shoot free throws in the driveway, build them a treehouse, swim out past the breakers and judge Barbie "beauty contests." He baked homemade bread for neighbors, handcrafted chess boards for family and friends, and taught his niece & grandchildren to play the game. He was a gentle, kind, true-blue-loyal and above all - a loving father, grandfather, brother, son, friend and neighbor, with a fantastic sense of humor and unsinkable spirit, always at the ready to lend a helping hand, whose words and deeds showed those dear to him that they were truly cherished.

Although his last year of life was marked with intense suffering and affliction, with God's help, he maintained a true warrior spirit, and never failed to keep standing up, even at his weakest. He ran the race set before him with endurance and professed Jesus Christ as his Lord & Savior. Well done, good and faithful servant.

He was preceded in death by his parents and grandparents, as well as two nephews, Jimmy Brown, Jr. and and Dustin Robertson. Survivors include: two daughters from a previous marriage (Carolyn Downey): Alyson Stonebraker (Bryan) of Charlotte, NC; and Stefanie Stark (Greg) of St. Augustine, FL; four grandchildren: Nicholas Stark (Mooresville), Andrew & Sophie Stark (St. Augustine) and Henry Stonebraker (Charlotte, NC); Three siblings: Tommy & Jimmy Brown (Tammy) of Winston-Salem, NC; Tammy Pegram (Todd) of Lewisville; eight nieces and nephews; numerous extended family members & many others left to cherish his memory.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Shepherd's Center of Charlotte or Winston-Salem. www.shepherdscenter.org. A memorial service is planned at Oaklawn Memorial Gardens on Saturday, April 20, 11am.