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Billy Singleton has served on the Clanton City Council for the last four years.

Billy Singleton with his book “Images of America — Chilton County.”

Billy Singleton and his wife Sylvia Singleton.

Billy Singleton’s aviation career began in high school in Monroeville.

Billy Singleton spent 21 years as a commercial airline pilot.

Billy Singleton ran for Clanton City Council in his first try at politics and was elected.

Billy Singleton flew for U.S. Airways, now known as American Airlines.

Billy Singleton earned certifications to fly nine different aircrafts during his aviation career.

Story by Carey Reeder

Photos contributed by Silvia Singleton & Clanton City Hall

Each year, one person is recognized as the Citizen of the Year in The Clanton Advertiser’s “Progress” magazine. The person is selected by a committee formed by past winners of the award, and the committee this year has selected Billy Singleton as the recipient of the award.

Singleton compiled an over 20-year aviation career while serving his community in multiple capacities, and is still serving and giving back to the community that welcomed him and his family with open arms in 1988.

“He is always willing to help when needed,” Billy’s wife Sylvia Singleton said. “He truly wants to make a difference in all he does — to make quality of life better for everyone.”

Singleton’s family is originally from Marengo County before his mother and father, Jean and George Singleton, moved out west to Farmington, New Mexico. Billy and his brothers Bart and George were born in New Mexico before the family returned to Alabama and settled in Monroeville. Billy grew up in Monroeville and attended Monroeville High School. He found a love of flying and started to learn how to fly planes in high school, and he qualified for a pilot certificate when he was 17 years old. Billy only wanted to fly planes, but no high school curriculum involved flying. However, he had teachers that let him bring that interest into projects. After high school graduation, he stayed on track to become a professional pilot.

Singleton got his flying career started in Monroeville at age 22. Three years later, he was hired by Piedmont Airlines and moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Piedmont Airlines became U.S. Airways through mergers, and today it is known as American Airlines. He spent 21 years with the airliner spending a large amount of the time as an instructor for them helping new pilots become captains to fly the planes, and he would accompany them on their first trips. During his 21-year pilot career, Singleton flew into 46 of the 50 states and many places internationally including Canada, the Caribbean, France, Germany, Mexico and Scotland. He was certified to fly nine different aircrafts by the time he left U.S. Airways, from smaller planes to huge 767s that can carry up to 232 people.

Billy attended Patrick Henry Junior College, now known as Coastal Alabama Community College, and met his wife Sylvia in 1982 in a computer science class they had together. Singleton received his undergraduate degree in business management and his master’s degree is in aerospace science to help jump start his aviation career. The couple got married in August 1988 and knew they would like to be close to Birmingham for Billy’s work out of the airport there, but did not want to live in a large metropolitan area. The day they got married, Billy and Sylvia got in the car and drove to Chilton County.

“We felt at home in Clanton the minute we crossed the city limits, literally,” Sylvia said.

The family set their lives up in Clanton and had three daughters — Lacey, Sarah and Sally. Billy enjoyed the career as a pilot, but the long travels put a strain on him being away from his family for three to four weeks at a time. He eventually left the airline industry and took a job flying smaller corporate aircrafts out of Birmingham to be back home more often until he retired.

In a 2019 article with The Clanton Advertiser by J.R. Tidwell on Billy’s aviation career, he gave his account of one of the darkest days in United States history from his very unique spot that September morning — in the skies.

Billy was flying from Birmingham to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 and was due to land in 15 minutes when air traffic control ordered all planes in the country grounded immediately due to a national emergency.

“It was a beautiful, clear day. It was so cool and nice … Then the call comes over our air traffic control frequency, due to a national emergency all aircraft are directed to land at the nearest suitable airport. That was it,” Billy said in the article.

Billy landed the plane in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

“We went into the terminal, and cellphone technology wasn’t what it is now back then. You couldn’t call anybody. I couldn’t call home or get in touch with anybody for six or seven hours, which was troubling,” Singleton continued in the article. “All we had were the CNN screens in the small terminal building, and it was obvious then what was happening. For the entire United States air transportation system to shut down within just a few minutes, it was unprecedented.”

Throughout his aviation career, Billy still held on to something that was passed down to him from his father George — a love of history. George wrote for the local paper in Monroeville for over 40 years, and Billy would accompany him on historical and investigative trips for stories.

“He got that love (of history) from his father,” Sylvia said. “Billy is a big reader, he loves to research and he likes to know why things happened the way they did and where all of this came from.”

Billy leaned into his love of history after retirement and focused a lot of time familiarizing himself with the history of Chilton County. When researching for specific stories, he found himself getting lost down different roads as he did his work, leading him to more questions and things to figure out about the past.

“Just me having an interest in history, I love to know how we got to where we are and who we are,” Billy said. “You start tracking those stories, and you investigate one, five more pop up. It started out as just a hobby, but it has become something more.”

Chilton County being known across the country for its peaches and how it is uniquely identified with them has always been intriguing to Billy. He mentioned a recent conversation with a state councilman where he called the Peach Water Tower the most unique and recognizable structure in Alabama. Any time Billy would say where he was from, everyone knew the area by way of peaches.

“Chilton County is so unique in its history,” Billy said. “I recognize every community has a unique history, but this one is especially unique. It is almost like when you are climbing a tree and you come to a branch and go out on it, and that branch goes a different direction — you can never funnel all of the paths that you want to follow.”

Having history documented for the future generations to have to look back on and learn about is important to Billy. A lot of people, places and things will not be there, so it is important to preserve and document that history. To do his part, Billy has published six books during his lifetime — four about Alabama aviation history and two specifically about Chilton County. “Images of America — Chilton County” is a book filled with photos and captions from the county, and “Hidden History of Chilton County Alabama” is filled with stories he discovered while studying the history of the area.

“I always say you have building blocks of history, but these smaller stories are the mortar that fit in between and make everything strong,” Billy said. “Those stories were so fascinating to me that the second book was the hidden history and all those little stories that I found so interesting. I had a lot of fun with those.”

Billy has been involved with groups and organizations like the Chilton County Chamber of Commerce and the Chilton County Airport Authority to give back to the community. Sylvia said any club or group Billy has ever been a part of he has always tried to leave things better than he found them. His sincerity in everything he does is one of the things that makes Billy who he is in Sylvia’s eyes, and she has learned that he does not care who gets the credit as long as the job gets done.

“He has always done little things in clubs he was involved with, and he was always looking for better things for the clubs to accomplish,” Sylvia said.

Billy had never tried his hand at politics until the last local elections when he ran for Clanton City Council, and he won. Alongside Awlahjaday Agee, Don Driver, Phillip Giles and Mary Mell Smith, the council has been able to help move the City of Clanton forward. Billy’s desire to serve on the council goes back to him feeling like he should give back to the community that welcomed his family with open arms.

“Billy sure helps me out a lot, and he is up here pretty much every day and if I need something researched, he is the man to do it and find out,” Clanton Mayor Jeff Mims said. “He is our historian and could dig up anything. He is a good friend of mine … You cannot beat him.”

Mims said having someone on the council that is so well versed in the history of the area is so vital, and a lot of the things the council has accomplished during their term could not have been done without Billy. He added that Billy is priceless when it comes to having him and the skills he possesses on the council.

“Billy is a really thoughtful person,” Mims said. “He thinks of things I could never think of … (The Clanton City Council) has done so much since we have been here, and Billy has been a big part of that.”

Nowadays, Billy still spends his time researching history and serving the community in Chilton County. His mother Jean still resides in Monroeville, and he visits his childhood area quite often to see her. Change is constant in life, whether that is in Chilton County, the City of Clanton or anything. However, Billy Singleton has remained the same throughout his life, still being the solid rock that he has been in the community since 1988.

“The people here have welcomed us and treated us like family our entire time. At some point, you think ‘It is time for me to give something back,’” Billy said. “It became a natural transition when I approached retirement that it is time to give something back. Hopefully, that is the way to do that. I look back on what we have done the last four years, and there have been difficult decisions to make and people may not understand why, but I can assure you it is always in the best interest of the community and its people. You want to leave something better than you found it, and as good as this city and county is, we just want to try to make it better. I hope when history judges us that we will be judged kindly, and we were able to make a difference.”

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