The Reverend William T. Scott, Jr. died March 19, 2015 at 85 years of age. Survived by his wife, Mary, and four children (Tate, Libby, Ann, and Louise), he was born in Dayton, Ohio on April 3, 1929 and spent his childhood and youth in North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida.  Educated at Elon College and Yale Divinity School, Rev. Scott was ordained to the Christian ministry on February 10, 1954. He served Congregational Christian and later United Church of Christ churches in Norwich, NY, Cornwall, CT, Durham, NC, Barrington, RI, Atlanta, GA, Pass-a-Grille, FL, and Ormond Beach, FL. During sabbaticals, he served churches in the United Reformed Church in England and was a Senior Associate Member at Westminster College in Cambridge. He served the associations, conferences, and national bodies of the United Church of Christ in numerous capacities. He also served state and local governments and educational institutions, offering prayers at public events.

Committed to social justice, Rev. Scott collaborated with AME churches in North Carolina, participated in the theater boycott in Durham, and attended the March on Washington in 1963. He was proud to note the 13 women over whose ordination to Christian ministry he presided. His innovations in church fellowship, mission, and education were sometimes the subject of controversy, but more often held out as examples for others.

Always interested in youth, in the 1960s, Rev. Scott appealed to the Barrington (RI) town council to allow high schoolers to continue to hold very popular rock music events in the church fellowship hall. In Barrington, he also established a program of "Tuesday School" with other local churches to engage teenagers in an ecumenical experience of Christian Education, and he re-established the separate roles of Preaching Minister and Teaching Minister, to allow increased attention to each.   In Atlanta, Rev. Scott created a sponsorship program so that each child in the church had an adult "sponsor," who paid special attention to the child and participated in the child's "Class Council."

Community was also important to Rev. Scott. While in Barrington, he encouraged parishioners to help establish the South Providence Neighborhood Ministries at a Baptist church in Providence. The Atlanta coffeehouse, "Lena's Place," was established under his ministry as a way to extend the bequest a parishioner designated to inspire creative fund-raising for local ministries. Church building and art projects resulted in sculpture, playground, memorial gardens, and more accessible spaces. A student of church history, he was one of the principal authors of "A Southern Pilgrimage," a history of Central Congregational Church published in 1982.

Mr. Scott was well-known for an extensive "tickler" file containing anniversaries of events, large and small, in the lives of his parishioners and family. He would often call or e-mail someone to say, "guess what you were doing 10 years ago today?" He joined the Atlanta Chrysanthemum Society for several years in the 1980s, saying, "I want my obituary to include something besides church-y stuff." His love for music extended beyond church music (though he was a strong supporter of music ministry) to include opera, symphony, and anything sung by 3 tenors.

In his later years, he was the primary caregiver for his wife, who suffered from hemiparesis as the result of a stroke. He was named Senior Minister Emeritus of Central Congregational United Church of Christ when he returned to Atlanta a few years ago.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Dunham Scott, their four children (William T. Scott, III, Elizabeth Dunham Scott, Ann Scott Price, and Louise Scott Fortney), two grandchildren (Zachary Todd Price and Colin Sarver Scott), daughter-in-law Jeanette Scott, sons-in-law Billy Joe Price and Murray Fortney, granddaughter-in-law Allyssa Price, family friend Joan Tomaszewski, five nieces, three nephews, and numerous cousins. He was pre-deceased by his parents, the Reverend William T. Scott, Sr. and Della Cotten Scott, his brother James A. Scott and his sister Lois Scott Luke.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Narcolepsy Research at Stanford University or the Progressive Christianity Initiative at Central Congregational United Church of Christ.