Pike County AlArchives Obituaries.....Floyd, Ray Wilkes, III May 21, 1988 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/alfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Alice Folmar Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008183 March 24, 2017, 10:44 am Obituary Collection of Kathlyn J Folmar FLOYD, RAY WILKES, III (1-30-1972 – 5-21-1988) Ray Floyd, III, age 16, of Route 2 Goshen, Ala., Pike Co., died Sat., May 21, 1988, in Dale County, Ala. Funeral services will be held on Mon., May 23, at 11 a.m. at Hales Chapel Baptist Church, Pike Co., with Rev. Craig Holmes and Rev. David Floyd officiating. Burial will be in the church cemetery with Dillard Funeral Home of Troy directing. The body will lie in state for one hour at the church before the services. Floyd’s survivors include his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ray W. Floyd, II, of Route 2 Goshen; two sisters, Jennifer and Rachel Floyd of Route 2 Goshen; a brother, Matthew Floyd, Route 2 Goshen; his maternal grandparents, Billy and Clavin Sunday, Troy, Ala.; paternal grandparents, Ray and Margaret Floyd, Route 2 Goshen; a maternal great-grandparent Mrs. Myrtle Knox, Route 1, Goshen. Memorials may be sent to the Mission Fund of Gods Way Baptist Church of Troy. Active pallbearers will be Andrew Hicks, Charlie Leverette, Thomas Hicks, James Davis, John Davis, Doug Barnes, Chris Thomas, Max Bundy, and Gabe Floyd. Honorary pallbearers will be members of the Tigers Baseball Team of the Dixie Boys League of Troy. Abstract from “Dothan Eagle” 5-21-1988 – Goshen Youth Drowns Brown’s Crossroads – Sixteen-year-old Ray Floyd III of Goshen, Ala., Pike Co., drowned Saturday on the Choctawhatchee River while on a canoe trip with his church youth group, in spite of attempts to save him. Dale County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Walter Ford said Floyd was on a trip with a youth group from Troy and had gotten out of the water with a friend to swim. Ford related that the two boys were cutting up and playing in the water when Floyd went under and apparently could not swim well – went under in a deep part of the river. He said Dale County received a call to help about 11 a.m., and deputies traveled through the woods to get to the area of the river where Floyd had last been seen. “We tried going in the water ourselves to find him, but it was too deep and just impossible,” he said. The Houston County Rescue Squad and Daleville and Newton Rescue Squads brought in their boats and dragging nets, and it took them about 15 minutes to locate Floyd’s body. Ford estimated he had been in the water about four hours by that time. A youth on the canoe trip had gone through the woods to find a house to call police for assistance. Al Flores and family of Ozark had been in a canoe behind the youth group and tried to help Floyd before rescue help arrived. Flores said, “He [Floyd] took me down with him a couple of times as I tried to get him out and I was trying to drag him to the edge of the river when his T-shirt ripped. When he went down then, I just couldn’t get him.” He said he tried to get others on the river’s edge to help the last time because he was exhausted and felt he couldn’t pull Floyd up himself, but no one came to help … said he thought they were in shock or panicked. Mrs. Flores said when they first saw the two boys, they just thought they were playing, until a girl started yelling that the boy in the river could not swim – then her husband went into the water to try to help. The Flores’ said Floyd went under in the middle of one of the deepest and widest parts of the river … that he apparently walked right off an edge where the river went deep. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/pike/obits/f/floyd2282gob.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/alfiles/ File size: 3.9 Kb