WILLIAM PERRY WILLIAMS (Bill) | July 20, 1942 – February 8, 2025

Bill was born in Seattle to Perry and Mary (Carey) Williams. His love of music began listening to his dad play Dobro guitar as he sang and yodeled to the neighborhood children. He and his little brother would whisper each year’s Christmas wishes to Santa at Frederick & Nelson’s and then visit “the Frango lady” at the store’s candy shop (who just happened to be their grandma).  

The family moved to Bellingham as he entered junior high. There he earned the rank of Eagle Scout in Troop 6. As an athlete, he was a competitive varsity swimmer, with a powerful butterfly stroke. Bill graduated from Bellingham HS in 1960, from WWSC in 1964 and, later, attended UW and CWSC for Master’s accreditation.  

Bill taught school for six years and had a real gift for challenging his students. He and Sandie Toler (MBHS) were married in 1968 and in 1970 they began a decade of nightly entertaining “on the road.” Next, he settled his growing family on the old Williams’ homestead in rural Woodinville and turned Seattle’s historic 20th Century Fox building into a multi-media recording studio where he also developed Living Quarters, a cutting edge kiosk advertising venture. 

After emergency heart surgery in 1988, the surgeon cautioned him to slow his life down but it was just not in his nature. A few years later, he founded Reformation Resources, pouring into that ministry the same dynamic energy that had always defined him. Then, when others his age were considering retirement, he accepted a congregation’s call to become their pastor, serving them faithfully until God called him Home. 

Bill’s dramatic tenor range and decibel level were jaw-dropping. People laughed as they grabbed sets of earplugs from a bowl at the entrance to each of his concerts but when he hit those powerhouse notes you could see them surreptitiously stuffing them in their ears. He sang for Mariners’ games, for governors and state political events, for high-profile televised funerals and low-profile weddings. He sang and yodeled the ballads of his childhood around family campfires. He crooned comfort in hospital rooms and nursing homes. His super power was making up lullabies that could put the crankiest child to sleep within minutes. 

He recorded three albums, two music videos and performed numerous concerts and yet Carol Edwards, the original founder of The Woodinville Weekly once called him “the best kept secret in the community.” The thrill of his signature high note is a sensation that is not easily forgotten and neither is he. 

Bill was preceded in death by his parents and younger brother Dan. He is survived by his wife Sandie, his daughters Wendie and BrieDanielle, his son Chalon, daughter-in-law Simone, and those he called “his bestest,” grandchildren Rowan, Tristan and Leif.  

A Celebration of Life will be held at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Kirkland, WA on Saturday, May 31, 2025 at 1 p.m. Memorial donations will be gratefully accepted by Reformation Resources as it was Bill’s wish that it continue to equip and encourage every life its ministry touches.