Retired Vice President Brown Dies

Willard W. Brown, a one-time CWA vice president and long-time local leader and union staffer, died Jan. 27 in a hospital near the family home in Lawrenceville, Ga., at age 82.

Brown served as vice president of the former District 10 (now part of District 3) between 1971 and 1980. He declined to seek re-election at the union’s 1980 convention, which recombined the two districts, spread over nine southern states, and retired later that same year.

A long-time union activist, Brown’s first full-time CWA position was in 1949, when he was elected president of a union division in the Atlanta, Ga., area. He was hired as a CWA special representative in 1951 and was appoint-ed the Florida, Georgia and South Carolina director three years later.

In 1955, Brown was named assistant to the director of the sprawling district and became assistant to the vice president when the director title changed in 1966. He was named an interim vice president by the CWA executive board for a several-month period in 1967 and transferred from Atlanta to Birmingham, Ala., in 1968, leading to his eventual election as vice president for the South Central Bell portion of District 3.

Brown, who taught in a one-room schoolhouse in rural Alabama early in his career, was hired by Southern Bell (now part of BellSouth) in January of 1937 in Montgomery, Ala., as a toll testboardman.

Survivors include his wife of 63 years, Addie, and a son, D. R. (Richard) Brown of Atlanta.