Willis Rudolph, known as 'Rudy' to his many friends, died January 19th in Spring Hill, Tennessee at the age of 90.  Rudy was born in Paducah, Kentucky and lived there until he enlisted and served for 4 years as an air traffic controller in the Air Force. After discharge, he became interested in TV engineering and graduated from Central Tech Institute of Electronics in Kansas City, Missouri. While in school in Kansas City, he met the love of his life, Janell, was also in Kansas City training to be a flight attendant. They married in Kansas City and spent their first few years living in Paducah where Rudy was TV engineer for WPSD-TV. They later moved to Memphis where Rudy worked at WMC-TV until his retirement in 1997.

Rudy was best known for being kind, humble, gracious and for "trying to treat others the way I wanted to be treated". He was also known for his passion for restoring old cars, antique radios, TVs and record players which filled their home for many years.

Rudy was preceded in death by his wife, Janell Rudolph (Golightly), his parents, Anther and Opal Rudolph and brother, Creston Rudolph. He leaves his two children, Gayle Shepherd (Kenny) and Kerry Rudolph (Donna), 5 grandchildren (Kyle Duggin, Keith Duggin, Ken Shepherd, Whitney Smith and Kaila Freeman), 12 great-grandchildren and two nephews John and Dan Rudolph.

Private family graveside service will be at Forest Hill Funeral Home and Memorial Park-East, 2440 Whitten Road, Memphis, TN 38133. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorials be sent to Memphis Union Mission.