Charles William Young (December 16, 1930 – October 18, 2013) was an American politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1971 until his death in 2013. A Republican from Florida, Young served as chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations from 1999 to 2005. He was the longest-serving Republican member of Congress at the time of his death.

Quick Facts Member of theU.S. House of Representatives from Florida, Preceded by ...

Bill Young
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida
In office January 3, 1971 – October 18, 2013
Preceded by	William Cramer
Succeeded by	David Jolly
Constituency	13th district (2013) 10th district (1993–2013) 8th district (1983–1993) 6th district (1973–1983) 8th district (1971–1973)
Chair of the House Appropriations Committee
In office January 3, 1999 – January 3, 2005
Speaker	Dennis Hastert
Preceded by	Bob Livingston
Succeeded by	Jerry Lewis
Member of the Florida Senate from the 19th district
In office 1966–1970
Preceded by	Beth Johnson
Succeeded by	John T. Ware
Member of the Florida Senate from the 11th district
In office 1961–1966
Preceded by	J. Frank Houghton
Succeeded by	William T. Stockton Jr.
Personal details
Born	Charles William Young (1930-12-16)December 16, 1930 Harmarville, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	October 18, 2013(2013-10-18) (aged 82) Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouses	Marian Ford ​ ​ (m. 1949; div. 1985)​ Beverly Angello ​ (m. 1985)​
Children	5
Signature
Military service
Branch/service	Army National Guard
Years of service	1948–1957
Rank	Master Sergeant
Bill Young's voice Young, as chair of the House Appropriations Committee, discusses H.R.2559, the Military Construction Appropriations Act of 2004 and related appropriations bills Recorded June 26, 2003

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Young was born in Harmarville, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, in 1930.^[1] He had Irish, German, and Swiss ancestry.^[2] He grew up in a Pennsylvania coal town in a shotgun shack.^[1] His father abandoned the family and a flood washed away their home at age 6. An uncle had a hunting camp in Florida, so the family moved there when he was 16. Young dropped out of St. Petersburg High School to support his ill mother, Wilma M. (Hulings) Young,^[1][3] and was wounded in a hunting accident.^[4] He married Marian Ford on August 20, 1949, when he was an 18-year-old high school dropout and she was 17, entering her senior year at St. Petersburg High School.^[5] When he was 18, he joined the Army National Guard and served from 1948 to 1957.^[6] After finishing his service, he applied for a job as an insurance salesman and ultimately ran an insurance agency.^[1]

In 1960 Young was elected to the Florida Senate, where he served from 1961 to 1970, and was minority leader in that chamber from 1966 to 1970.^[6][7][8] Until 1963, Young was the only Republican in Florida's upper chamber.^[9]

From 1962 through 1964, Young served on the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, commonly known as the Johns Committee (for its Chairman Charley Eugene Johns), a legislative panel that investigated the activities of homosexuals, communists and others thought to be subversive. In 1964, the committee released a pamphlet entitled Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida, which drew criticism at the time for its use of explicit photographs of homosexual acts.^[10] At the time, Young said of homosexuality: "Our report tried to show it in its true light – it's a very repulsive subject."^[11][12] Responding to reports that reprints of the pamphlet were being sold as pornography for a gay audience, Young said: "This indicates how bold the homosexual is becoming and further proves the necessity of state government taking the lead in responsibility for preventing these confirmed homosexuals from preying on the youth of the state."^[11] In 1993, Young was asked about his involvement with the report by the St. Petersburg Times and said: "I am not supportive of homosexuality, but that's the decision of the people who are involved in it. If someone wants to engage in that sort of behavior, that's their choice." Young also stated that the committee was largely inactive during his tenure due to the illness of its chair, Charley Eugene Johns, and that he was not involved enough in the committee to be either proud or regretful of its work.^[11]

Young served as a member of the Florida Constitution Revision Commission from 1965 to 1967. He was also a Florida delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1984.^[6]

Young married Marian Ford on August 20, 1949, when he was an 18-year-old high school dropout and she was 17, entering her senior year at St. Petersburg High School.^[5] They had three children: Terry, Pamela, and Kimber. In 1985, after 36 years of marriage, Young divorced Marian.^[40] As part of the divorce agreement, Marian received $2,000 per month in alimony in exchange for agreeing to seal the divorce records and not speaking publicly about it during Young's lifetime. Eight days after the divorce became final, Young married Beverly Angello, who had worked as a secretary in his congressional office and was 25 years his junior.^[5] Young and Beverly had two children together: Charles William "Billy" (who was born in 1984, while Young was still married to Marian)^[5] and Patrick, in addition to Beverly's son, Robbie, from her first marriage.^[41]

On October 18, 2013, Young died at Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland at the age of 82. He had been hospitalized for almost two weeks after suffering a broken hip and fractured pelvis.^[5] Doctors could not perform hip surgery because of brittle bones caused by multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that forms in bone marrow.^[5][42][43]

On January 6, 2014, Marian Young and the three children from his first marriage spoke out for the first time since Young's death. Marian said that her lawyer had specifically asked her to keep silent about her husband's affair with Beverly due to concerns that he would lose his congressional seat. Even though the divorce records were sealed, many journalists at the time "knew about the affair and the [extramarital child's] birth, but believed such issues fell outside the public's right to know." Terry, Pamela and Kimber also claimed that they had only heard from their father sporadically in the three decades following the divorce.^[5]

• C. W. Bill Young Regional Reservoir
• List of United States Congress members who died in office (2000–)#2010s