Cecil Williams

Clarence Cecil Williams, known as Cecil Williams (July 1922 – April 30, 2008), was a Kentucky-born journalist on the staff of The Alexandria Daily Town Talk in Alexandria, Louisiana, from 1955 to 1987. He began as a reporter and became assistant managing editor under Adras P. LaBorde. His most significant work was as business editor and columnist. He continued his popular column "Business Talk" for several years after retiring. During much of his tenure, the publisher was Joe D. Smith, Jr.

Williams was born and reared in the census designated place of McRoberts in Letcher County in the coal-mining area of eastern Kentucky adjacent to the Virginia border. After high school, he worked for the coal company dispensing dynamite and blasting caps to miners. He was also seasonally employed in tobacco production.

In 1951, Williams married the former Patricia "Pat" Conners (January 3, 1929 – December 30, 2007), orginally from New Orleans. She was a former employee of the Louisiana State Office Building in Alexandria. The Williamses moved to Alexandria when he joined The Town Talk. They had four children: Frances W. Woodiel and her husband, Christopher Davis Woodiel, and Conners Williams and wife, Debbie, both couples from Baton Rouge; Sean Williams and wife, Vicki, of Vancouver, Washington, and Maurice Williams of Alexandria, and five grandchildren. After his wife's death from cancer, Williams moved to Baton Rouge, where he succumbed to complications of a hip fracture. The couple is interred at Greenoaks Memorial Park in Baton Rouge.

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