08/27/2026
For our dear friend & LONG time ASF member (and sound engineer), Bobby Rains—a celebration of his father’s life & legacy.
BOBBY JOE RAINS, SR
(August 29, 2026)
Bobby Joe Rains, Sr. of Pinckard, died early Sunday morning, August 23, 2026. He was 86 years old. Mr. Rains was born, July 24, 1940, in Middlesboro, Kentucky, to the late Garnet and Delphia Rains.The second of six children, he was a hard worker from his earliest days with paper routes, grocery deliveries, working at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville selling peanuts and cokes at University of Tennessee football games, and he even built a complete bedroom suit in wood shop at 15 years of age. He was mechanically inclined and took his skills to the US Air Force in 1959 where he was assigned to a B-52 squadron at Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia.
In 1961, he met Barbara Ruth Bennett at a USO club dance, and a year later he married her. They
were married for sixty-one years, until Barbara’s passing in 2023. Also in 1962, Bob was the crew
chief on a B52 Bomber carrying four nuclear bombs as his squadron flew missions toward the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis. In 1963, following the birth of his son, Bob decided to pursue a civilian career and was promised a job in Atlanta with Eastern Airlines as a mechanic, only to be told upon arrival that they couldn’t hire anyone due to the economy. But the hiring manager gave him a place where he might find work in a little town called Ozark, Alabama. Neither he nor the hiring manager knew where Ozark was, so Bob quickly bought several maps and found his way to Ft. Rucker that week. As fate would have it, the civilian contractor, Paige Aircraft, hired him and he started a forty-year career at Cairns Field working on helicopters.
He and Barbara were blessed with a daughter in 1965, and relocated to Dothan shortly thereafter. A highlight of his civilian career was assembling a classified crew to modify helicopters for a hostage rescue attempt in Iran, under the direction of Major Richard Cody, later Army Vice Chief of Staff and Lt. General Cody, who would become Bob’s confidant and friend. Though the rescue mission failed, the Army, with the help of Bob and his team, learned from the failures, and all future helicopters like the Blackhawk and Apache aircraft were modified to withstand the rigors of desert warfare based on that experience.
After his children, Bobby and Donna, finished high school, Bob and Barbara began to square dance. They joined the local “Goober Gamboleers” Square Dance Club, earned their certificates in both square and round dancing, and began traveling to other area clubs to participate in dances - at the state, regional, and national levels. In 1986, they purchased a new home in Pinckard to get away from the city. After Bob’s retirement, he and Barbara lost their daughter Donna. It was a difficult time, so the two pulled further away to a Lake Eufaula retreat with family. And when in Pinckard, Bob and Barbara loved to garden, giving away more produce than they kept. Barbara instigated their in-house pickle and jelly making efforts, but Bob was always by her side to help.
Though he spent a large portion of his adult life away from church, Bob’s mother and grandmother had instilled a deep faith in him. He and Barbara joined the Pinckard Methodist Church and were regular attendees. Bob rededicated his life to Christ in 2021 and was re-baptized that year.
Surviving relatives include his son, Bobby Rains, Jr. (and his wife Louisa); a sister, Phyllis J.
Greatorex (and her husband Richard) three brothers, Jim Rains (and wife Regina); Eddie Rains, and Lynn Rains; a grandson, Matthew Rains; nieces, nephews, and cousins also survive. He loved his extended family and was also happy to claim Louisa's four children from a prior marriage as his own grandchildren: Vic, Jill, Beth, and Jim; and Louisa's 6 grandchildren: Luke and Lilly Addison, Kayte, Evelyn, Anna Blayke, and Ronnie Grace McNease.
