Williams named Citizen of the Year

The following biography was recently read at the Greenville Area Chamber of Commerce Banquet Thursday evening, Sept. 14, during the announcement of Dr. Duane Williams selection as Citizen of the Year.

 

“After 50 years in pediatric health care, one pediatrician has earned more than a few fans – and the respect is mutual.

After 17 years of practicing pediatrics in Louisiana, Dr. Duane Williams, affectionately referred to as “DOC”  first stepped foot in Butler County in 1989 and has served thousands of children in the community ever since.

It was a little boy with a sideways hat that stole Dr. Duane Williams heart back in his early days of pediatrics.

Williams was a medical student at Charity Hospital in New Orleans and there was a little boy with incurable heart disease. “Every morning when I was in pediatrics I would go up in that ward and that little fellow always had the biggest smile on his face,” said Williams.

Williams knew the boy had been deserted by any family and friends, and that he had been left there to die.

Williams said he never forgot that little child, and that the little boy had to do a lot with his decision to practice pediatrics.

He was looking for a chance to come back to Alabama because he loves to hunt and fish, and Alabama is just home to him.

Williams saw an advertisement in the pediatric journal for a pediatrician in Greenville, Alabama and he fell in love with the small-town atmosphere and the doctors and staff he worked with, but he says that it was the children that kept him coming to work each and every single day.

Dr. Williams said that the kids he’s worked with over the years feel like his family. Being a small-town doctor was what he says he always wanted to be.

Anyone that knows Dr. Williams will agree that he chose the right career path……the walls in his office were filled with hundreds of photos of children he has helped over the years.

During his time in Greenville, Dr. Williams has treated generations of Butler Countians and said that he enjoyed it just as much the day he retired as he did the very first day he started his practice.

Dr. Williams officially retired in September of 2022, at which time Mayor Dexter McLendon declared Sept. 28 of each year “Dr. Duane Williams Day.”

The proclamation outlined many noteworthy areas of impact Dr. Williams made in his contributions to Greenville including his work as a long-time beloved physician at Regional Medical Central in Greenville for three decades and touched the lives of thousands of young children, from birth to 21 years old during his role as pediatrician for 50 years.

Nearly five decades after becoming a pediatric doctor, Williams said he wouldn’t trade his life for anything.

No matter what mood he would wake up to in the morning, he ALWAYS looked forward to going to work and helping children.”