Rodney Haynes placed his hand in his pocket when he sang karaoke.
Often, he’d belt out Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” or “On the Sunny Side of the Street.” Mr. Haynes was a Willie Nelson fan, too.
“He sang anything Willie Nelson or Frank Sinatra did,” said a friend, Carol Davis of Peachtree City. “Karaoke can be hokey, but our group was blessed with remarkable singers, and he was one of them. Everybody would get up and dance when he sang.”
Maybe the talent came naturally. Mr. Haynes sang in the church choir when he was a boy in Somerset, Ky., in the south central part of the Bluegrass State. It’s also where he nurtured an interest in medicine. He worked part time for a local pharmacist while attending community college, said his sister, Donna McFall of Somerset, Ky.
“He’d always been good in science,” she said. “He came to Atlanta in the 1970s to attend pharmacy school.”
Rodney G. Haynes, 59, of Sharpsburg died Monday from complications of Lou Gehrig’s disease at Embracing Hospice in Snellville. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday in the chapel of Parrott Funeral Home & Crematory in Fairburn, which is handling arrangements.
After community college, Mr. Haynes received a bachelor’s degree in science from the University of Kentucky. He also graduated from Mercer University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. In College Park, he practiced for decades at Stone’s Pharmacy, which he eventually bought and sold. He also worked as a Winn-Dixie pharmacist in Newnan before his disease rendered work futile.
In the summer of 2007, Mr. Haynes started having cramps and twitches in his limbs, among other symptoms. He knew why. His mother, Audrey Haynes, died from complications of Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1982. He was diagnosed in January 2008, a reality he accepted without self-pity or sorrow from family and friends.
“He knew what to expect,” his sister said, “and he wouldn’t let us cry.”
Despite his illness, Mr. Haynes tried to see as much of the world as possible. Even when he was in a wheelchair, he and his son traveled to the Grand Canyon and Canadian Rockies, said Vickie Easter, a family friend from Somerset, Ky. She moved to Sharpsburg to help care for Mr. Haynes, someone she’d known nearly 30 years.
“His wife died of cancer,” Ms. Easter said, “and he had been so dedicated to her. He deserved someone here, and I wanted to be here. This is where God wants me to be, and I’ve been here since January.”
At Mr. Haynes’ memorial service, Ms. Davis, a friend, plans to honor the karaoke crooner with renditions of three songs: “Shepherd of My Heart,” “I Have a Dream” and “On the Sunny Side of the Street.”
Other survivors are another sister, Brenda Hollingsworth of Howard, Ohio; and a son, Robert Andrew Haynes of Macon.
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