William "Bill" Adkins

Born in Bryan and raised in College Station, Bill graduated with the Class of 1974 at A&M Consolidated High School, Texas A&M University Class of 1978, and earned his MBA in finance from University of Texas Austin in 1981.

While growing up in College Station, Bill spent a lot of time playing on the Texas A&M campus, visiting the dairy, swimming at the college pool, playing in the Memorial Student Center and attending Aggie football games. Around age 11, he began helping his father build the family home off Southwest Parkway, which was as far south as College Station went at the time. This is where he began learning his building and carpentry skills. He helped frame and sheetrock the whole house. During the summers as a teenager he worked for Area Progress Corp, moving dirt and clearing land as College Station began to grow further south. During college he spent summers working for Kent Moore Cabinets where he honed his cabinet building skills.

After finishing graduate school in Austin, he began his banking career at Texas Commerce Bank. He later joined Cattleman’s Bank, which eventually became Wells Fargo. Around 25 years ago, he was asked by his old friends and colleagues from his Texas Commerce days to join The American Bank of Commerce and help build the Austin market. In addition to handling his customers’ needs he also became their close friend. At one time or another Bill served as market president for Austin. He served on the bank’s executive management team and headed up their mortgage lending area. He was a special part of The ABC Bank family, and he cared a great deal about his co-workers.

In the early 1980’s, Bill found and purchased a hidden gem of a lot in a well-established neighborhood. It was the last available lot in the area and most people most likely assumed it was part of the greenbelt. Working with an architect he designed and built a home that was a labor of love. For almost 40 years he worked on the house and yard, redesigning rooms, building cabinets and making furniture. He built stairs along the cliffside down to the creek where he and the boys liked to fossil hunt. It was a fun home to raise his boys in and was always the house where their friends wanted to hangout.

Bill was a dedicated family man and he and Danielle always put the children first. He was so very proud of the successful, productive men that his boys have grown up to be and adored the girls they married as the daughters he never had. In their youth the boy’s friends all became part of the family and many were included on family vacations and holidays. When one friend lost his father during his senior year of high school, he lived with Bill and Danielle for the rest of the school year. Bill would also do anything for his sisters and was a sweet and loving brother to them.

Bill was known for his very dry sense of humor and often had his friends and family in stitches when he told a story. That continued up until the end. He meant so much to a lot of different people. He was often helping friends and family with remodeling their homes. He laid tile floors for friends, helped colleagues with home repairs and mowed his neighbor’s yard when they were out of town.

Bill enjoyed spending time at Danielle’s family home in New Bedford, Massachusetts. And of course he spent his time there remodeling, too. He made his last trip there in August with the entire family and despite feeling weak from chemotherapy, he still managed to work on the house!

Bill also gave a lot of his time to various charitable organizations throughout the years. He helped to build homes for Habitat for Humanity and served on the boards for both Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Scottish Rite Learning Center.

Bill was preceded in death by his parents, Dr. William G. Adkins and Betty Jane Adkins.

He is survived by his wife Danielle and three sons: Gray (Arienne), Cade (Sophie), and Giles, as well as his precious grandchildren, Ivy and Ryder, all of Austin, Texas. He is also survived by his sisters and their husbands; Pam and Jarvis Porter, Anne and Steve Roop and Caroline and Frank Wallace. In addition, he leaves behind his nephew Holland and nieces Ashley, Whitney, Meredith, Liz, Stephanie and Meg along with their families, as well as three sisters-in-law, Janice McKeachern, Carole Sayegh and Dawn (Terry) Santangelo.

A Memorial Service will be held at 2:30 pm, Friday, December 20, 2024 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 2128 Barton Hills Dr, Austin, Texas 78704.

The family extends their gratitude to the compassionate staff at Hospice Austin and Christopher House.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donations to the following organizations or to a charity of your choice.

Hospice Austin

4107 Spicewood Springs Road

Austin, TX 78759

HospiceAustin.org

Pancreatic Cancer Action Network

pancan.org

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

2128 Barton Hills Drive

Austin, TX 78704

stmarksaustin.org