State Bank Yankees scored twice in the opening inning... Ron Williamson and Carl Tilley got two of the four hits... each being a double" (July 13,1965); "Meanwhile the Bank team bounced into the second place nest... Ronnie Williamson had two doubles and a single" (July 15, 1965).
In the 1960s, Byng High School was about eight miles north and east of the Ada city limits. It was considered a country school, much smaller than the sprawling Ada High School. Though the neighborhood kids could attend Ada High if they chose, and if they were willing to make the drive, virtually all opted for the smaller school, primarily because the Byng bus ran through the east side of town and the Ada bus did not. Most of the kids on Ron's street chose Byng.
At Byng Junior High School, Ronnie was elected secretary of the seventh-grade class, and the following year he was voted president and a class favorite of the eighth grade. He entered the ninth grade at Byng High School in 1967, one of sixty freshman. Byng did not play football-that was unofficially reserved for Ada, whose powerful teams annually competed for the state title. Byng was a basketball school, and Ronnie picked up the game his freshman year and absorbed it as quickly as he had baseball. Though never a bookworm, he did enjoy reading and made As and Bs. Math was his favorite subject. When he was bored with textbooks, he plowed through dictionaries and encyclopedias. He grew obsessive with certain topics. In the midst of a dictionary binge, he would pepper his friends with words they'd never heard of, chiding them if they did not know the meanings. He studied every American president, memorized countless details about each one, then for months talked of nothing else. Though he was steadily growing away from his church, he still knew dozens of verses of Scripture, which he often used to his advantage, and more often used to challenge those around him. At times, his obsessions wore thin with his friends and family.
But Ronnie was a gifted athlete, and thus very popular in school. He was elected vice president of his freshman class. The girls noticed him, liked him, wanted to date him, and he certainly was not shy around them. He became very particular about his appearance and fussy about his wardrobe. He wanted nicer clothes than his parents could afford, but he pushed hard for them anyway. Roy began quietly buying himself secondhand clothes so his son could wear better ones.
Annette had married and was living in Ada. In 1969, she and her mother opened the Beauty Casa, a hair salon, on the ground floor of the old Julienne Hotel in downtown Ada. They worked hard and soon built a brisk business, one that included several call girls who used the upper floors of the hotel. These ladies of the evening had been a fixture in the town for decades, and had taken their toll on a few marriages. Juanita could barely tolerate them.
Annette's lifelong inability to say no to her little brother came back to haunt her as he constantly wheedled money out of her for clothes and girls. When he somehow discovered that she had a charge account at a local clothing store, he began adding to it. And he never thought of buying the cheap stuff. Sometimes he would ask permission; often he would not. Annette would explode, they'd argue, then he would con her into paying the bill. She adored him too much to say no, and she wanted her little brother to have the best of everything. In the middle of every fight, he always managed to tell her how much he loved her. And there was no doubt that he did.
Both Renee and Annette worried that their brother was growing too spoiled and putting too much pressure on their parents. At times they lashed out at him; some of the fights were memorable, but Ronnie prevailed. He would cry and apologize and make everybody smile and laugh. The sisters often found themselves sneaking him money to help buy things their parents couldn't afford. He could be self-absorbed, demanding, egocentric, downright childish-the obvious baby of the family-and then, with a burst of his oversized personality, he would have the entire family eating out of his hand. They loved him dearly, and he loved them right back. And even in the midst of their bickering they knew he would get whatever he wanted.
The summer after