William J. Towler III

Retired City Newspaper publisher Bill Towler died February 27 at age 87 after a long, courageous battle with the neurological disease Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. He was a loving, intensely engaged husband, father, and grandfather and is survived by his wife Mary Anna; daughters Elizabeth Towler-Menon and Cheryl Towler Weese; son Will; son-in-law Dan Towler Weese; daughter-in-law Dawn Brandenburg; grandchildren Micah, Cole, and Carter Weese; sisters Lena Scott and Martha Jones; brother Bob; sister-in-law Cheryl Mullins; brothers-in-law Robert Scott and Chipper Jones; and numerous nieces and nephews.

A quiet, humble force of nature, Bill grew up in the South but spent most of his life in Rochester, devoted to the city and its people. He was born in Columbia, Tennessee, and had wanted to be an architect, but there was no university architecture program in Tennessee at that time, and he couldn't afford out-of-state tuition, so he earned a degree in electrical engineering at the University of Tennessee. He paid his way through college working as a co-op student for Southern Bell telephone company and then as an employee at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

He married Mary Anna in 1962, graduated from the university in the spring of 1963, and the two moved to the Cape Canaveral, Florida, area, where Bill was a project engineer in Pan American World Airways' Guided Missiles Range Division during the nation's early space exploration period. They and their infant daughter moved to Rochester in 1965, where Bill worked first at General Dynamics Electronics as a staff engineer, then at Eastman Kodak as a management consultant in industrial engineering, and then at the Gananda Development Corporation as associate director of community development.

And in his spare time, he became heavily involved in city-oriented community activities. A passionate supporter of cities, he served as president of the Park-Oxford Neighborhood Association, chaired a city-wide citizens' coalition that helped develop a city-planning strategy for Rochester, and served on a task force that developed street-lighting standards for the city. Through the Rochester Episcopal Diocese's Board for Urban Ministry, he served on a committee working with residents of the Southeast Loop neighborhood as the city prepared to demolish the Savannah Street-Broad Street area during Urban Renewal. And he was an executive committee member of a political action group that took control of the Monroe County Democratic Party.

In 1971, he and wife Mary Anna founded City East newspaper (later, City), ultimately leaving outside employment for a full-time career as City's co-publisher, sales manager, and business manager. And for the following nearly 50 years, he devoted himself to supporting independent journalism in Rochester and, in a role he treasured, assisting local businesses and nonprofits, especially arts organizations and small, independent businesses. He considered his role in sales to be one of public service, helping small businesses assess their strengths and opportunities, and he often took photographs and designed their ads himself.

In addition to his career at City, Bill was on the board of the Friends & Foundation of the Rochester Public Library and was active in the congregation of Third Presbyterian Church. Nationally, he served as a board member and as president of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, which honored him in 2021 with its Lifetime Achievement award. He retired from City in January 2020 following its sale to WXXI.

Bill loved to cook, to read, to sail, to travel, to paint, to go to concerts, plays, and museums – and to just wander around, anywhere he was (in his last years, frequently frustrating family and caregivers by speeding off in his power chair without them). He loved old cars, sports cars, and old buildings. He never found a food he didn't like, never heard a type of music he didn't like, never met a person he didn't like, never saw a need he didn't want to try to fill. And despite the progression of his disease, which took away his ability to walk and then to talk, he remained intelligent, curious, and engaged in life as much as he was able, attending an RPO concert two weeks before his death.

In lieu of gathering at a memorial service, friends are encouraged to celebrate his life by supporting Rochester-area arts organizations and efforts for peace and justice.