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William “Bill” Lee Eckel passed away peacefully at his home in Norman on Sunday, November 26th, 2023. The third of four siblings, he was born on October 24th, 1955, in Shelby, OH to Otis and Dolores Eckel. Raised in Wichita Falls, TX, in 1980 he married the love of his life, Dana Catlege.
As Bill would put it, his “real” job was as an Air Traffic Controller/Flight Service Station Specialist, a trade he learned serving in the United States Navy’s 7th Fleet, and mastered in his career with the Federal Aviation Administration, where he retired in 2005.
However, Bill’s first love was the arts. Writing of all kinds was his passion and his ambition. In an interview with Online Book Club, he said, “When I was a kid, my dad had books everywhere. I devoured them. When I exhausted all the books in the children’s section of the library, I had nothing left to read. At that point, I decided to write my own stories.” When he moved to Oklahoma, Bill performed all over the state as a singer/songwriter and bass guitarist, releasing his comedy music album “One Swell Foop” in 2000.
In 2014, he began a career as a fantasy/science fiction novelist, studying under New York Times best-selling authors Deborah Chester and David Farland and winning numerous awards as an up-and-coming independent writer. He published four novels, “Cadet Adam,” the award-winning “Hard Kill,” “Shem’s Quest,” and “First Created,” as well as various short stories, both fiction and non-fiction.
He never hesitated to jump in to anything that caught his attention, from community activism and gardening to stand-up comedy and acting. Whether on the stage or on the page, and especially in everyday life, he had a gift for spreading laughter and joy. He will be dearly missed.
He was preceded in death by his parents and his sisters Theresa, Cindy, and Bobbi Jo.
Bill is survived by his wife Dana and their son Daymon Eckel, and his in-laws, Norma and Daymon Catlege.
The family will gather at a later time to celebrate Bill’s life.
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