William Roebuck collection

The Reverend William Olin Roebuck was born July 27, 1938, in Thomaston, Georgia, to William Clay and Nora Jones Roebuck. He grew up with his parents and two sisters, Frances Elizabeth Roebuck Shelley and Betty Joyce Roebuck Gassett, in a farming and mill-working community in Taylor County, Georgia. Around 15 years of age, William and his immediate family became Christians at the Fickling Mill Church of God under the pastoral leadership of Reverend Carl and Maudie Gilbert. On July 27, 1958, William married Melissa Maxwell. They were married 64 years and had two children: David Grant Roebuck and Rebecca Ann Roebuck.Roebuck accepted the call to ministry while attending South Georgia Trade and Vocational School (now South Georgia Technical School College) in Americus, Georgia. The Church of God credentialed him as an exhorter on May 25, 1961, a licensed minister on December 12, 1964, and an ordained minister (now bishop) on June 30, 1971. In 1972 he earned a B.A. in Christian Education from Lee College in Cleveland, Tennessee.Roebuck began his tenure in pastoral ministry in 1961 by planting two Church of God congregations: one in Americus, Georgia (now Life Point), and another in Vienna, Georgia. He also served the Blakely, Georgia church before moving to Cleveland,Tennessee to attend Lee College. After graduating from Lee in 1972, he moved to Ohio where he served at Delaware, Dayton-Hoover Avenue, and Huber Heights churches. In Kentucky, he pastored the West Liberty church before moving back to Georgia,where he served the Cordele church, and both the Americus and Blakely churches for second terms. Retiring from pastoral ministry in 2004, he moved back to Cleveland, Tennessee, where he worked seventeen years at Church of God International Offices as a security officer. He also served as interim pastor of Ladd Springs Church of God in Old Fort, Tennessee. William O. Roebuck died July 5, 2022, and is interred at Sunset Memorial Gardens in Cleveland, Tennessee.