Robert William Ball, 75, an addictions counselor from 1999 to 2003 at Kolmac Clinic, an outpatient treatment center for alcoholism, died
May 24 at his home in Alexandria. He had liver cancer.
Mr. Ball was a buyer and manager of area bookstores early in his career. Starting in the 1990s, he began working as an addictions
counselor for Whitman-Walker Addiction Services in Washington, among other clinics in the region. He also was an addictions counselor
and member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Mr. Ball was born in Elkins, W.Va., and raised in Washington, where he graduated from what is now McKinley Technology High School. He
attended Catholic University and what is now Davis and Elkins College in West Virginia and served briefly in the Air Force.
His companion of more than 30 years, Joe B. Crain, died in 2005.
He leaves no immediate survivors.
2006