William Mathews Featherston III was born in Elk City, Oklahoma, to William “Bill” Matthew Featherston II and Rosabelle “Rusty” Jean Featherston (nee Harrison) on May 6th, 1952. Will and his five siblings attended Catholic primary school in Elk City until one of them allegedly punched a nun. The siblings claimed Will was the offender, but Will said it was his brother Tim. The truth will never be known, but regardless, Bill and Rusty sided with their child, and the whole family transitioned to public school.
After an adventurous year as a foreign exchange student in Sweden, Will returned home and graduated from Elk City High School in 1971. Inspired by the space race, he majored in engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. As a college freshman, he talked his way into a part-time job as a maintenance worker in the dorms and met some of his best friends while unclogging their shower drain. He later shared a home with those friends in West Campus, which they nicknamed “Owl’s House” after Winnie-the-Pooh. In the summer, he rode his bicycle all the way home from Austin to Elk City. He bled orange but never let go of his love for OU football. Life just doesn’t make sense sometimes.
After graduating college, he worked aboard a scientific research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. He tried to send money back to Texas so his friends could bring it when they visited him at a port call. But, after all the effort, they couldn’t find anywhere in Mexico that would cash the traveler’s check. They survived on vitamin D and soup and had a wonderful time.
He returned to Austin in the late 1970s and went to work for Abbott Labs. In 1978, he met Rebecca Brett Smith while she was waitressing at the Rainbow Inn. Will’s penchant for awkwardly chatting up wait staff, while everyone else at the table cringed, was legendary. Will and Becca married in Mayfield Park in Austin in the spring of 1979, surrounded by friends, family, peacocks, small furry mammals, and big beautiful oaks and pecans. During the ceremony, a strong gust of wind took the hat off the minister’s wife, and it landed in the middle of the koi pond. All present were witness.
Will was raised Catholic, and Becca was raised Southern Baptist, and for a brief time, they together raised their children, Witt McCall Featherston and William “Hank” Matthew Featherston IV, as neither. And after an extremely difficult period, they agreed to raise their children separately. Though their relationship with each other sometimes made it difficult, they each tried their very best to teach their kids to, above all, be kind and take care of those who need taking care of.
In the mid-1980s, Will went to work for Plexco Pipe, which was later acquired by Chevron and renamed Performance Pipe. For more than 30 years, he did everything from troubleshooting daily issues in polyethylene pipe production to overseeing the construction of new plants in both the U.S. and Mexico. He loved working with people to solve problems.
From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, Will lived in southeastern Iowa, and there he met Suzanne Moore Raap. They were literally crazy for each other. Will said they were only married twice, but if you count the number of times they cohabitated in a co-owned house and then separated, you might need both hands. He was proud of Suzanne’s children as though they were his own, and he stayed very close to some of them until his final days. He cared deeply for the entire Moore Raap family.
Though Will had an adventurous spirit, he was always the child of a small town. So, when Performance Pipe brought him to Brownwood, Texas, in the late 2000s, he immediately felt at home and never again considered moving anywhere else. During his years in Brownwood, he made many cherished friends. In the summers, he organized odd jobs around town for a tight group of kids. While pulling weeds, painting houses, and hauling junk together, they discussed life, the universe, and nothing and everything. Those kids are now young adults, some spread to the corners of the country with children of their own. But near and far, he kept up with them almost daily, sometimes via online video games. He loved those kids immensely. He wanted nothing more in life than for them to be their best possible selves, and he knew they were doing just that.
Will loved to read and claimed to own an outrageous number of books. He would occasionally brag to relative strangers about his collection, causing his children’s eyes to roll all the way back in their heads. Yet as adults, when they thought they’d found a book worthy of recommending to him, he had always already read it.
He planted a garden at every house he ever lived in. He had a crush on Sigourney Weaver in “Alien.” He let his children watch inappropriate movies at way too young an age. Once, in the haze of recovery from a minor procedure, he proclaimed he had two great loves: women and iced tea. He drank about a gallon of iced tea a day, with plenty of ice and no sweeteners. He loved cooking. He loved philosophical conversations about human nature, and he wouldn’t stop until the other person said “mercy.”
Somewhere along the way, the bonds of his family of origin were frayed. But Will never lost his connection to his father. In his final hours, he said he wanted to go find his dad on the other side. He was gently reminded that he’d find some ex-wives there too, and he seemed mostly okay with that.
Will died from complications due to kidney failure on January 5th, 2026, peacefully at his home, with his dear friend Sheryl Miller by his side.
He was preceded in death by many loved ones, of both blood and friendship. And he is survived by that many more, including his children, his daughter-in-law Lauren Featherston, and his grandchildren Hayes McCall, Lane “Bean” Louise, and Reese Rebecca Featherston.
“I made enough mistakes to have lived a good life.” – Will Featherston
