Chester B. Skates

Chester B. Skates, aged 73, of Destin, Florida, passed away on Wednesday, December 22, 2004. Mr. Skates served Columbia High School as head football coach for the fist two years of the school’s existence, in 1967 and 1968.

Coach Skates was born in Fairfield, Alabama. He graduated from Hueytown High School in 1950. Following graduation, he received a football scholarship to the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa and played football at the University of Alabama and at Jacksonville State University. He graduated from Jacksonville State in January, 1957.

Coach Skates began his coaching career at Hueytown High School and ended it at Livingston State University as a member of the coaching staff of the 1971 National Championship team. He began his school administrative career in Brundidge, Alabama as a junior high administrator. He continued as an elementary principal in Barnesville, Georgia. Coach Skates came to Fort Walton Beach, Florida as a school administrator at Bruner Junior High School in 1975 and continued there until his retirement in 1994.

Coach Skates was a member of the Masonic Lodge in Hueytown. He was also a member of the Jacksonville State Alumni Association and the 1955 Football Bowl Team Reunion Group.

Funeral services were held on Monday, December 27, 2004 at Brown Service West Chapel; interment was in Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church Cemetery.

Coach Skates was preceded in death by his parents, Chester and Kathleen Skates, of Hueytown. Coach Skates married Martha Jane Hoops on July 4, 1951. He is survived by his wife; his son, Randy Skates and his wife, Toni, of Fresno, California; and his daughter, Cathy and her husband, Eddie Dobbins, of Destin. He is also survived by two grandsons, Steven Dobbins and Chris Reed; and brother, Bob Skates, and his wife, Lois, of Hueytown, Alabama.