Robert A. "Bob" Givan

Robert A. "Bob" Givan, 100, passed away peacefully on February 20, 2013.

Bob was born on December 28, 1912, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and he was the oldest of five children. In 1931, as a senior in high school, Bob was employed by the L & N Railroad in New Orleans, moved to Mobile, Alabama for a brief tenure with the railroad there, and moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1936, where he worked at the Southern Freight Association. He met and married Mary Elizabeth Mckinley, "Betty", in 1938, and he accepted a position as Auditor of the Atlanta and Saint Andrews Bay Railroad in Dothan, Alabama that same year. Bob worked at "The Bay Line" until he retired in 1977 as President and Chairman of the Board. After his retirement in 1977, Bob did consulting work for short line railroads throughout the United States. After Betty's death in 2000, Bob moved to Atlanta, Georgia with his son, Jim and daughter-in-law, Ann, and he later moved with them to Gulf Breeze, Florida. Bob's entire family met in Gulf Breeze on December 28, 2012 to celebrate his 100^th birthday, and Bob was his jovial self, full of with and wisdom, and looking forward to the Alabama-Notre Dame Football Championship Game to be played on January 7, 2013. Bob was an avid Alabama fan; he typically enjoyed the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat", and he studied the recruitment process like a coach!

Bob is survived by two sisters, Grace and Edith, who live in New Orleans, Louisiana, and by his three children, four grandchildren, and his five great-grandchildren. His oldest daughter, Vicki Crawford, lives in Atlanta, Georgia; his daughter, Bootsie Nix, lives in Shalimar, Florida, and his son, Jim Givan, and wife, Ann, live in Gulf Breeze, Florida. Grandchildren are Vicki's children, Kathy (Bill) Ghirardini, and Elizabeth (Jamie) Riddle, in Atlanta, Bootsie's son, Michael Nix, in Albuquerque, and Jim and Ann's son, Tom Givan (Alexa) who live in Daphne, Alabama. Bob's great-grandchildren are Kathy and Bill's sons, Thomas and Robert, Elizabeth and Jamie's children, McKinley and Jack, and Tom and Alexa's son, Sean.

A graveside service will be held at Memory Hill Cemetery in Dothan, Alabama at 2 P.M. on Friday, February 22, 2013. The family will receive visitors at the conference room of the Hampton Inn and Suites after the graveside service.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial donations be made to St. Columba Catholic Church in Dothan.