William "Bill" Luther Lyon Jr.

William “Bill” Luther Lyon Jr., 96, passed away quietly at home on January 16, 2019. Bill was born on May 20, 1922, to William Luther Lyon Sr. and Eleanor Ida McCamant Lyon in El Paso, Texas. He graduated from Crockett Middle School and Austin High School. During these years, he developed his life-long passion for tinkering, and over the years built two steam engines, a windmill, innumerable model aircraft, a guitar, lots of wooden art, and various esoteric electro-mechanical devices.

Bill began his college career at Texas College of Mines and Metallurgy, but left to join the US Army in May 1943. He was a radio technician and tech sergeant in the 60th Signal Battalion, serving in New Guinea and the Philippines. Postwar, he attended the University of Texas in Austin, earning an Electrical Engineering degree in 1948.

At UT, Bill met Verna Mae Orts, the love of his life, with whom he celebrated 70 years of marriage just a few months ago. Bill and Verna Mae were introduced by their respective roommates, Johnny Swegler and Kay Grimes, who also married and returned to El Paso. The two couples were lifelong friends. Bill and Verna Mae’s nine children, along with the Sweglers’ eleven, made their frequent visits memorable.

Bill spent his entire career working for El Paso Electric Company. He served longest in the Engineering Department and retired from the company as the Vice President of Systems Operations in 1985. He shared the love and respect of friends, long passed and too numerous to mention. He joked that “it must have been a good job because it lasted 37 years.”

Bill’s hobbies reflected his wide interests. His very first hobby was building model airplanes. His desire to control them led him to radio and electronics. He was the President of the El Paso Radio Controllers Club for many years. As he aged, he gave his model airplanes to young airplane enthusiasts, his family, and his good friend Tom Holmsley. Tom recently refurbished and flew the first airplane that Bill and his friend Robert Moore had built and flown in 1937.

Bill was a long-time member of the El Paso Woodworkers, and had his own lathe and tools in his workshop at home. You name it, Bill made it – toys, furniture, even the three wise men for a yard display from a sewing pattern that his mother used. His granddaughters have wooden jewelry boxes made by his hands with love.

Bill loved science and served many years on the Board of the Insights Science Museum along with his good friends Chuck and May Ann Dodson. Bill spent countless hours at the Museum building exhibits and making sure that all the electrical components were in order.

He loved making things, solving problems and helping others do the same. He passed his love of building things on to his children, many of whom became engineers. Bill supported his children in building things like rockets, radios, and cameras, and encouraged their interests in ham radio, model electric trains, fish breeding, and photography, to name just a few, and countless science fair projects, saying, “You have to feed the smart.” These were formative experiences for his children.

There is nothing that Bill could not make or fix. He generously shared his time and talents with his family, his friends, and his community, remaining passionate in his pursuits well into his 90s. He was a man of many actions and few words, but always knew how to turn a phrase to get a smile. He once said, “You can’t tell your children how to live their lives.” So, instead, he quietly showed them.