Bill Flatt
Interview By: Hannah Walters
The great William (Bill) Perry Flatt was born in Newburn, Tenn. on June 17, 1931. He grew up on his family’s cotton farm where he regularly attended the local Methodist or Presbyterian church (wherever the pastor was that week) and he spent his childhood summers making rounds to the four surrounding churches. His chore was to draw water which he claims was his “ambidextrous talent.” Not only did he grow up in a church and family-oriented environment, living within five miles of his grandparents, he was also was surrounded by what would end up being his life career: agriculture.
His love for agriculture started when Bill was six years old and he began working on his family’s farm picking cotton. Most of us pray for fluffy white snow to let us get out of school. In Bill Flatt’s childhood, kids got out of school for fluffy white cotton! School kids would get several weeks off to work on their parent’s farm and they got paid by the pounds of cotton picked. Devoted to the church at an early age, Bill began tithing with his first earnings as a cotton picker because like his grandmother would tell him, “Billy, the first ten percent you earn goes to the Lord!” The other money he earned, that he didn’t give to the church, Bill saved for college.
First, Bill attended Bethel College, a Cumberland Presbyterian College where he met his lovely wife, June. They married when he was just seventeen years old. He was later a Deacon at Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Knoxville after they transferred there to attend the Univ. of Tennessee. June was editor of the campus newspaper. With no more cotton fields to pick in the city, Bill worked as a traveling salesman to make money to pay for both his and June’s tuition. After receiving his undergraduate degree, Bill attended Cornell Univ. in Ithaca New York, where he earned a PHD in Animal Nutrition, Biochemistry and Physiology.
Being a triple major doctorate-degreed man, or as one could say, the Agriculture Guru, Bill and June moved to Beltsville, MD just outside of D.C. to work. There he was head of an energy metabolism lab where he worked to increase the efficiency of dairy cows to produce as much milk as possible with the least amount of feed.
Finally, in 1969, Bill and his family moved to Athens. At first, his daughters wanted to attend the Tuckston Methodist church. After they graduated and moved out however, Bill and June began attending Athens First Presbyterian Church in 1973. As he says, “Sunday, it was time to go to church. It was something we did, you know.” He describes this devotion to attending worship as enabling him to question his fundamental faith in a good way so that he can grow and really understand and strengthen his beliefs.
As clearly an avid church-goer, Bill has many favorite practices. His favorite verse is the classic John 3:16 and his favorite hymn is “Amazing Grace.” In fact, in a year he spend working in Scotland to verify the agriculture research he’d done here in the States, Bill says he heard “Amazing Grace” performed many times on the bagpipes. Not only is Bill Flatt a great Christian, he is also a great athlete! When he was in his sixties and taking care of his wife, June, who had tragically developed a debilitating disease called Guillain-Barre syndrome, Bill realized he needed to get active because, in his words, “I needed to be healthier so I could live longer to take care of June.” He achieved this by working out devotedly to Richard Simmons “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” workout video. Bill works hard at everything he does, he even got a call from Richard Simmons himself on Bill’s eightieth birthday and Richard sent him his newest workout video for free!
Obviously we can all look up to Bill Flatt on how to live our lives. Devoted, hard-working, intelligent, kind, and always happy, Bill Flatt is a beacon of light to strive towards, fellow Christians.
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