This is Billy’s signature inside the cover of a book he gave on my birthday back in 2001. It was a biography of Jefferson Davis and he was real excited about it. Bill was just about always reading one book or another and telling folks what he had learned from the experience. He had a zeal for reading and lusted for knowledge. I bet everyone he knows has at least one good story about how he shared his reading with others. It was great to hear him get excited about learning in this self-directed manner. When he was in high school he complained to his teacher about how they did not teach Irish history. The teacher granted him permission to go to the library on an ongoing basis to research the subject. Bill admired the teacher for giving him the freedom to learn about what he chose to learn. This zeal followed Bill throughout life. He never lost it.–Bill O’Neal
