Bobby Wayne Butler was born on December 26, 1950 and died on December 22, 2020 after a hard-fought battle with lung cancer.
Wayne Butler spent his whole life taking care of the people he loved. After serving in Korea in the Army, he did brutally hard construction work for 20 years for Pressure Concrete in order to support the family he shared with his wife Debbie, whom he married May 6, 1978. Highly skilled and extremely smart, he rose in the company to become a supervisor on major construction projects across the country. But the job required weeks of travel at a time, and he gave it up to avoid being separated from his wife and two young daughters. He worked at Tee Jays for 10 years and Graphix Packaging for 11 before retiring in 2011.
Wayne could build or fix anything, and he was the go-to person for his huge extended family whenever they needed a new floor, a leak fixed, or help restoring a classic car. He made the very best barbeque in a smoker he built himself, and he took great pride in the large garden he grew every year. He was a jokester and a prankster, always keeping everyone laughing and, on several occasions, tricking people into eating extreme hot sauce. He once set off a stink bomb after his brother’s funeral in order to make his nephews laugh.
Wayne dropped everything when his family needed him, whether it was to repair an elderly sibling’s house, to take his daughters to doctor’s appointments, or to drive across the country in the snow to get his wife home for Christmas. He was never too tired or too busy; when someone needed him, he got it done. When he was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year, he promised to fight with everything he had, and he did. He died surrounded by his wife and daughters whom he adored and his sons-in-law that he tolerated.
He was preceded in death by his parents Samuel Carroll Butler and Mildred Gertrude Trousdale Butler and by his brother James Oliver Butler. He is survived by his wife Debbie Butler, daughters Christina Marks (Stanley) and Jennifer Butler Keeton (B.J.), and his grandson Riley Marks. He has seven surviving siblings: Peggy Rutledge, Delories Davis, Glenn Butler (Eileen), Roy Butler (Shelby), Lena Davis (John), Jason Butler (Mary), and Debbie Montgomery (Bobby.) He is also survived by dozens of nieces and nephews, many of whom have loved their Uncle Wayne like a father.
A private graveside service was held at Butler Cemetery on December 26, his 70th birthday. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made toward his grandson’s college fund, via his daughter Christina Marks.
