William B. Cook

William Barrie Cook was born on July 18, 1939 to Alfred and Ida Cook in Queens, New York. He was raised in Manhattan. He attended college in Binghamton and graduate school at Arizona State University. His first job was with the Corps of Engineers, then he took work as a geologist with Molycorp, traveling widely, including the interior of Brazil.

Willie and Fairy were married on June 8, 1969, in a small ceremony at the First Assembly of God Church in Aurora, Colorado. They lived in Santa Fe and Taos then bought their first house in Aurora. In 1971 they had their first child, Janie, followed shortly by Paul then Beth. Another family member, Forrest, entered the family in 1996.

Willie continued to travel and the family summered with him in the small farming town of Elk Creek, Nebraska. He retired from Molycorp in 1998 and worked consulting for Unocal until 2001.

Willie was a man of many talents, and he shared them generously. His presence, like his faith, was quiet and unassuming, and yet steadfast. Willie inspired devotion in a host of pets and even in the most tentative creatures, leaving water for the bees and peanuts for the squirrels. He could be found in his later years puttering around the house with Horowitz on the hifi. He had a wry sense of humor and often saw life from The Far Side. He was many things to those he left behind and his absence looms large. He will leave an empty place in a golf foursome, an empty chair at the supper table, and an empty spot in all of our hearts.