Bill Lee Turner

This box asks what I would like to say about "Bill". Well, the first thing I would like to say is that he was *not* "Bill", he was Billie. I can remember being nearby when people would come visit and insist on calling him "Bill" and after they left him muttering "My name is not Bill, it's not William, or Will, it's Billie Lee!" So many people not familiar with the ways of Texas just don't understand that people really do get named, as their formal name, "Billie" or "Bobby" followed by...

I enrolled at UT intending to be a writer, having been Editor-in-Chief of my high school paper. My very first class at 9 AM on the first day of university was Biology with Billie Lee Turner. Well, I'll never forget that raucous, inspiring lecture. He was having so much fun, and he was so smart! By 10 o'clock that day I decided to go into life science. Over the years I met other people with similar stories--Billie Lee changed their lives as well. How lucky we were! Much later I got a chance to...

As the daughter of one of Billie's colleagues, I remember chance encounters with Billie over the years at the Botany Labs building or at departmental events Id attend with my parents. Even as a young girl he made an impression on me. I will always remember him for the colorful character that he was. This obituary captures him well. My condolences to his family. Sona Spear Nast

I first met Billie Tuner the summer of 1961 before I was to enter
UT as a freshman botany major. I knocked on his office door and said
that I was interested in angiosperm systematics. After telling him all
about my desire to become a plant systematist he said: My God young man
you know more already about what you would like to do than most of my
graduate students! Come with me and I will give you a desk in the
herbarium that you can use while you are a...