Wilbur "Will" Myers

Will Myers passed from this life on Saturday, April 11, 2026 in Rogers, Arkansas at the age of 94. He led a full life surrounded by family who loved and cared for him, including Mary, his loving wife, four children, three stepchildren, and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Born January 24, 1932 in Bay City, Texas, Wilbur Jay Myers was the son of Oliver Allen Myers, a carpenter and vegetable grower, and Wilma Ann Hanna. As a child, his family, including siblings Jane, Earl, and Louann, moved between coastal Texas and Columbus, Ohio, his father’s hometown. During World War II the family rolled into Rogers, Arkansas pulling a two-wheeled trailer packed with all their belongings, where they would call home. They built a house south of Rogers from materials salvaged from a skating rink, and his mother raised a huge garden which provided food for the family. Among other projects, Ollie Myers built and operated the Teepee Town roadside lodge with concrete teepee cabins.

During World War II, the sounds of fighter planes flying over Columbus helped inspire Will’s life-long passion for flight and mechanics. As a teenager he completely dismantled and reassembled cars from memory for the challenge. He entered college at the University of Arkansas in 1949 to study architecture but left in 1952 to work as a draftsman for the Boeing Company in Wichita, Kansas. Drafted into the U.S. Army at the end of the Korean War, he served 1954-1956 at Eielson Air Force Base outside Fairbanks, Alaska. He then returned to Boeing.

In 1958, Wilbur Jay Myers and Olive Ann Munday, a school teacher, married in Monett, Missouri. They would live and work in Wichita, Kansas; southern California; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and northwest Arkansas. They had four children: Nancy, Karen, Robert, and David. Along the way, Will Myers completed a bachelor’s and then a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Arkansas and the University of Tulsa. All four of his children would graduate from the University of Arkansas. Education has been important to the family.

During the 1960s Will served as an engineer in aviation and aerospace, including for America’s Gemini and Apollo Programs. This was when most calculations were handwritten formulas aided by mechanical slide rules, and plans were painstakingly drawn with pencil on paper. Will’s work for firms in California and Oklahoma included performing the reliability stress analysis of a component of the Gemini Spacecraft’s oxygen system. And his contributions to the Apollo Program included designing the hinge mechanisms which opened the four large panels housing the Lunar Module which landed on the Moon.

His father’s unexpected death in 1968 led the family to relocate to northwest Arkansas where Will completed development of Sherwood Forest Subdivision. He served as Chairman of the Bentonville Airport Commission when pioneer aviator Louise Thaden was invited to Bentonville to rededicate the Louise M. Thaden Airport in 1976. Will also directed Daisy Manufacturing Company’s Research and Development Division. He and Ann eventually divorced.

While employed at Conoco Oil Company in Ponca City, Oklahoma Will met Mary Lynn (Kanelakos) McFarland. Their marriage in 1991 in Tarrant County, Texas brought her children Leslie, Justin, and Spencer into the family.

Will retired on the last day of the 20th Century after having worked at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas for the previous decade. There he led engineering teams designing various fighter jets and the National Aerospace Plane. He and Mary, a Master Gardener, built their retirement home outside Rogers, Arkansas with a backyard nature sanctuary. Will loved trees and early on learned to identify many species from their bark and leaves. Their yard included his favorite tree, a Texas Live Oak. Two great-grandsons called him “The Acorn Man”.

In retirement Will remained obsessed with all things mechanical. He spent years meticulously restoring classic cars to perfection, cross-country driving to his favorite antique car swap meets, and for five years teaching a mechanical engineering design class at the University of Arkansas where he enjoyed advising students.

For the last few years of his life, contending with declining health and memory, he struggled to continue living independently and did so with the help of Karen, Nancy, Mary, and others. At the age of 93 he moved to assisted living.

Family and friends are invited to Rollins Funeral Home in Rogers, Arkansas, on Saturday, April 18 with visitation beginning at 10:00AM and his funeral at 11:00AM. Burial in the Rogers Cemetery will take place next to his parents’ gravesite.

In his memory the family suggests donations to the University of Arkansas Foundation – Mechanical Engineering Scholarship. Please include "Will Myers" in the memo line. And in memory of someone you cherish, as we do Will, please consider planting and nurturing a tree.

Goodbye for now.