William Walker Dixon

“Steady As She Goes”

William Walker Dixon passed away peacefully at his home in the early morning of May 3, 2025, with his wife Mary Wayne and daughter Ginger by his side. Always in robust health, Bill faced several health challenges over the past year until sepsis ultimately took a toll on his big heart. Bill was fully aware of what a good, long life he had lived and knew he had much to be grateful for.

Bill was born in Richmond on February 2, 1934, to Thomas Hume and Myron Barnes Dixon, not far from his family’s farmland in Kiptopeke on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. He grew up fishing from a small rowboat, farming during harvest and roaming the woods. From those beginnings, he became a successful entrepreneur and traveled the world sailing, hunting and fishing.

At age 11, Bill went off to Episcopal High School in Alexandria, VA, where he earned his lifelong nickname “Juicy” when his mother sent him a case of Juicy Fruit gum. There he excelled at athletics, particularly football, and was voted by the Prep School Coaches’ Association as the best in the league. From there, he attended Washington & Lee University, where he majored in economics, graduating in 1956. While there, he was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity and a captain in ROTC. Bill always credited the experiences and friendships at these two schools for enriching his life, opportunities and outlook. After graduation, he was commissioned into the U.S. Army as a Second Lieutenant just after the Korean War and was stationed at Fort Benning and Fort Stewart. Notably, he was part of a small unit to be schooled in tactical atomic warfare. Following his honorable discharge from the Army, Bill connected with high school and college friends and moved to Atlanta and began his entrepreneurial journey by launching a successful insurance company.

To his everlasting good fortune, he was introduced to a beautiful Atlanta debutante, Mary Wayne Courts, whom he married on April 27, 1962. Shortly after their marriage, Mary Wayne’s father, Tucker Wayne, was tragically killed in an automobile accident, leaving a great void in the Atlanta business community as the founder and leader of the region’s premier advertising agency, Tucker Wayne & Co. After Mr. Wayne’s untimely death in 1963, Bill was invited to join the Agency and for the next 25 years helped guide the firm to great success. As the Agency experienced unprecedented growth, Bill branched out with his partner Bill Jones into the business of buying radio stations throughout the Southeast, expanding many AM stations to include FM and was instrumental in introducing gospel programming in several TV markets. Always seizing on new opportunities, he was a guiding force in several business ventures, from a company that made automotive repair products with partner Martin Kilpatrick to co-founding an innovative company with Hunter Bell, Drain-All, Inc., that eliminated water from machinery in the industrial production process.

However, Bill was NOT all work and no play, he liked to keep moving! His life revolved around travel, hunting and fishing—from Africa to New Zealand--with longtime buddy Jimmy Stockton. He had a group of close friends who sailed with him each spring over a dozen or so years, primarily in his classic Hinckley sailboat, which he lovingly named “The Mar-Gin” in honor of Mary Wayne and Ginger. He and Mary Wayne traveled the world with their family and friends and spent many memorable seasons at their beach house in Ponte Vedra, where he shared his philosophy of life, based on integrity and honesty, with his two grandsons. Also, as an avid angler, he shared his fishing skills with them, whether in the nearby lagoons of Ponte Vedra, the waters of the Caribbean, or Point Pleasant Farm in Virginia, which is still in the family.

Throughout their life together, Bill and Mary Wayne have been active supporters of a number of civic organizations, including the Atlanta Botanical Garden and the Cherokee Garden Library. They are active members of the Cathedral of St. Philip and Christ Church in Ponte Vedra. Bill was a member of the Piedmont Driving Club, Capital City Club and was a retired 32nd Degree Mason in Shriners International.

Bill often said he was happy with his life, his wife, his daughter, and the things he was fortunate to do. “The Lord has been very kind,” he would say. “Sometimes I think it’s going to rain, but I can run between the storms.”

Bill is survived by his wife, Mary Wayne Dixon, his daughter, Virginia Wayne Dixon, her partner, Marcus Morris, and her sons, William Dixon Molloy and Tucker Wayne Molloy. He was predeceased by his parents and his younger brother, Thomas Hume Dixon, Jr. (2022). He is survived by Hume’s sons, Thomas H. Dixon III and Russell R. Dixon (Jill), all of Virginia.

A memorial service will be held at the Cathedral of St. Philip at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, May 28, 2025. In lieu of flowers the family suggests a donation to the Cherokee Garden Library, 130 West Paces Ferry Road, NW, Atlanta, GA 30305 or to the Shriners Hospitals for Children, 2900 Rocky Point Drive, Tampa, FL 33607.