Roll Call Tribute

William C. "Bill" Liles 

December 4, 1943 - February 23, 2025 

My husband, Bill Liles, age 81, passed away peacefully in our home Sunday, February 23, 2025 in Muleshoe, Texas. He was born December 4, 1943 in Amarillo, Texas, to Bill Liles and Eloise Liles Cosca, both deceased. He married me, Alice Graves, in Rosenberg, Texas, on September 4, 1965.

Bill was born in Amarillo, Texas, and divided his childhood to time spent in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and right around here in Farwell. Then in the summers during his teenage years, he built bridges and overpasses in Arkansas and Oklahoma with his uncle, Stanley Barber. He graduated high school in Harlingen, Texas, and began college at Texas A&I University, now Texas A&M University Kingsville, where we were both taking ag classes.

In 1967 we transferred to Texas A&M University in College Station where I changed majors; he did not, and graduated with a BS in Agricultural Economics while I moved into Education. We both graduated in 1969. While at A&M, Bill served in the Army National Guard as a paratrooper, on call from 1968 to 1974.

After graduation, we moved to Rosharon, Texas, where Bill managed a fishing resort briefly before managing a ranch in Greenwood, Arkansas for Uncle Stanley. That didn't last long, either, and we moved to Edna in the snow pulling a horse trailer with two horses, two kids, cats, dogs, and tropical fish to be the assistant manager of the Federal Land Bank Association, now Capital Farm Credit, in Edna, Texas. Then we moved to Muleshoe in 1980 when he became the manager of the Land Bank office here when Ernest Kerr retired. I have been told by many people that he was instrumental in helping them purchase land and be successful land owners.

Those horses and more cats and dogs came with us to Muleshoe, so animals have always been a part of his family. He wasn't crazy about my black mare: he would frown at her; she would back her ears at him, but they tolerated each other for me.

Bill was active in Rotary Club and always helped with putting out the flags and the annual team-roping weekend the club sponsored. When he coached in the Little League program, he kept the fields clean and mowed. He played golf, supported the Muleshoe Mules, served on the hospital board, and was an active member of the Methodist Church. He worked in an office, but always had something going on outside, building a greenhouse for me, working on the yard, tinkering with stuff, always trying to come up with a better way of doing things. He traveled often to Austin for Land Bank meetings about the time I decided I needed a big cactus garden. He saw big rocks going to waste in ranchers' pastures and encouraged me to stop and see if anyone would like to get rid of some of those rocks. I did, and more times than I can count now, we hauled trailer loads of rocks back from the Hill Country for my garden. One year my Valentine's present was even a trip to Coleman for a load of rocks. And he was always willing to roll those rocks around just where I wanted them placed and helped me add landscape interest, like rusty stuff and cedar post entrance arches. He thought up ways to help me protect some plants from frost damage and built a big box with a tarp on top for an agave. He always did nice things for me, like the addition to the house for a room-sized closet.

When he retired in 2001, he tried his hand at raising a few cattle, but gave that up and planted 180 pecan trees to keep him busy. Another of his pastimes after he retired was going to coffee every morning at McDonalds. I suspect politics, the world's problems, and football issues were regularly solved whenever they weren't all trying to remember someone's name when a story needed to be told. But he always had an opinion and had no trouble letting anyone know how things should be, which meant that sometimes he was sort of a pain in the rear.

Bill always enjoyed time with his kids, grandkids, and great-granddaughter. We made trips to Disney Land, Disney World, New York, Washington, D.C. Alaska, and South Padre Island, not for us, but for the kids. He built playhouses, made a see-saw, put up trampolines, took them snow skiing, water skiing, to the beach, anything he thought they needed to do. And gave unsolicited advice when he thought they needed it.

He loved football, bled maroon, and would scare the dogs to death whenever the Aggies played badly, which seemed to happen way too often. There was much yelling at the coaches and players that might not be playing or coaching to suit him as he watched the games on TV. Once when he was watching an SEC football program, I asked him what they talked about when football season was over. He looked at me quietly, surprised I would ask such a silly question, and without cracking a smile, said, "Football." And that was that.

Bill is survived by me, our daughter Caroline Kron and her husband Neil, of Clovis, New Mexico, our son AJ Liles and his wife Erin of Kyle, Texas; our grandchildren: Colten Harris of Clovis, Maya Liles and Ben Liles of Kyle, step-grandchildren Callie and Ty Kron of Lubbock, Korben Kron and his fiancé Ave Evanoff of Clovis, two dogs he loved, one cat he liked, and the newest love of his life, great-granddaughter Laikyn Harris of Clovis.