William E. Woolet, known to his picking buddies around Woods Music in Maynardville as “Dobro Bill,” was born June 26,1927. Our math being correct, on June 26, 2026, he turned 99 years young. Bill was born in Mishawaka, Indiana, and was raised on a farm with three brothers and four sisters.

Bill graduated high school in 1945 from Mishawaka High School and joined the U.S. Navy, where he served on the Wharton and Prinston battleships, and was stationed on the Bikini Islands while testing was being done on the atomic bomb. Bill was honorably discharged in 1952.

Bill and his wife-to-be Bunny Martineau were pen pals and met at the end of 1951. They married in 1952 in San Bernadino, California. Their union brought them four beautiful daughters and a handsome son (according to Bill). Their first home was in LaMirda, California, and after moving to Orange and his employment at Southern Calf Gas Company, they moved to a place just this side of Heaven called Tennessee.

Bunny passed away in 2020, which left a terrible void for Bill, but years prior he began playing bluegrass music again and rekindled his love for playing the dobro. Bill traveled to many conventions and was proud to say he was the oldest dobro picker at any of them. Bill said he was so old the first rainbow he ever saw was in black and white.
When asked is there something he would enjoy doing, instead of answering going to DisneyWorld, with a tear in his eye Bill said, “I’d like to pick one more time with my buddies.”

So on June 9, surrounded by 15 other musicians celebrating his 99th birthday, he spent two hours enjoying music and fellowship. Jim Woods told Bill the reason his cake didn’t have candles was that the fire marshal wouldn’t allow that large of a fire inside the store.