Meet Dr. Bill Coates! Dr. Coates is the pastor at First Baptist Church Gainesville and has lived in Hall County for 20 years. The South Carolina native moved with his family to Gainesville in 1998 from Orangeburg, S.C. He is married to Claire and the couple have two children; Elizabeth and McKinley, and one grandson. Dr. Coates says his favorite thing about Hall County is the people.
“Some of the best people that I’ve ever known in my life are from Hall County. Hall County’s people are gracious, generous and openhearted,” he said. In his spare time, Dr. Coates likes to read, run, garden and travel. Each year, he takes local groups on trips around the world. Most recently, he went to Ireland and plans to possibly travel to Panama next year.
“I do these trips every year for anybody in the community that wants to go and we’ll have anywhere from 25 people to 90, if we go to the Holy Land, but I just love taking people and letting them experience places that they’ve never been. A lot of these places I’ve been to several times now but I love going with people and getting to know them. Ireland was the most recent one and we are looking at the possibility of Panama next year and seeing the Panama Canal or a river cruise down the Snake River in Oregon,” he said.
We want to thank Dr. Coates for taking time with us recently to tell us more about his life and love of Hall County.
Question: What led you to become a pastor?
Answer: “Strangely, it’s all I’ve ever known. I was five years old and if anyone asked me what I was going to be when I grew up, I’d say a preacher. I’ve never had another calling, I never seriously entertained doing anything else. At a point in my teenage years, I knew that the call was there very strong but I didn’t want to do it, I did not want to be a minister…I decided I was going to join the Air Force because I always wanted to fly planes, I even tried to go that route early on but I backtracked out of it because I knew it wasn’t right for me. I knew there was only one thing I could do with my life and that was to preach.”
Q: What is on your bucket list?
A: “When I retire, hopefully a while from now, I’d like to reinvent myself in a way that I’m doing something I’ve never done before. This is all I’ve done since I was in college, for 40-something years this is what I’ve done and I’ve loved every minute of it and I wouldn’t go back and do anything other than this but a lot of pastors, when they retire, they’ll take interim jobs, I’m not saying I won’t do something like that but I could work at Home Depot or something that I’ve never done before and that when I leave it, I am done for the day.”
Q: What are some things that are happening at First Baptist that you would want the community to know about?
A: “We have so many different ministries but one thing that is exciting is the Jubilee Garden. After we built the Banquet Hall we had the land down behind it that is a retention pond and there’s a big swath of land next to it that we always thought if we could just have a garden there one day…the Jubilee Garden came to me about a year ago and said their lease was up on the land that they had over in Midtown. They were the right people that came to us at the right time. I said we would help promote it and have volunteers, that garden will provide food for the food banks and different outreaches that actually give food to people that need it all through the summer months.”
Q: What was the first movie that you remember seeing in the theater?
A: “It was a John Wayne movie and I was very young and I remember it was a Cowboy and Indian movie and it scared me because my uncle took me and several other kids, I was four or five years old but I remember it because there was shooting and stabbing going on and I had a nightmare that night.”
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?
A: “Australia and visit Outback country, everything I’ve ever seen of the Outback country I would love to go experience that.”
Q: What advice would you give a crowd of people?
A: “If I were just talking to a crowd of people, that wasn’t in the context of a Sunday worship service, I would say find a way to bridge these gaps that have us all on opposite sides these days. I wish people, regardless of their political ideologies or regardless of their religious beliefs or regardless of their cultural background; could always look for common ground and find ways to come together and be loving to each other. Find a way to live in peace together.”
Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Hall County?
A: “It’s a three way tie: Two Dog, Luna’s and Eat at Thai. Those are the three I gravitate toward the most.”
Q: What is your favorite thing about Hall County?
A: “Two things, one is the people. Some of the best people that I’ve ever known in my life are from Hall County. Hall County’s people are gracious, generous and openhearted. I grew up in South Carolina and I thought South Carolinians were that way and it’s even more so here. The other thing that I love about Hall County is the terrain, the landscape. We’ve got the rolling hills, the foothills to the mountains, we have the lake; it’s definitely the best place to live.”
Q: What three words mean HOME to you?  
A: “Home is where I can totally be who I am, home is a place where I am loved and home is a place that I just look forward to being.”
The Faces of Hall County is a project to showcase the amazing people that live or work in our community. If you would like to nominate an interesting person to be featured please email babernathy@gonorton.com.