William Milton “Billy” Branch III was born on December 26, 1950 and died on October 29, 2024 from complications of cancer and long-term immunosuppression, the latter due to a successful liver transplant in 1999. He was 73.
After growing up in Dallas, Billy moved to Austin in 1969 and was an “old Austin hippie.” He earned a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations from the University of Texas at Austin in 1978; then, after years of working in bookstores, he went to ACC to learn drafting, eventually becoming a utilities cartographer for Austin Water and Wastewater and what was then Southwest Texas State University, now Texas State. He received a Master’s degree in cartography from SWSU in 1997.
What Billy did, however, was much less important that what he was. He was funny; he was charismatic; he was cool. He was kind, but did not tolerate “assholes.” He loved to talk to people. He loved camping, especially in the wilderness, until age and arthritis forced him to give that up. He loved rock and roll, not just the seminal bands of his youth, many of which he saw live (including the Beatles) but more recent music as well.
And he loved his wife, Sharon Arnoult Branch, whom he met in 1975 and married in 1978. She survives him, as do his brothers Cary Branch (Ann) and Chris Lowdon; his sisters Denise Morrison (Ken) and Nancy; and his nieces and nephews Saille, Barron, Eva, Will and Lily. He also leaves to mourn him a multitude of friends, including many that go back to high school. He tended to keep people he cared about.
The following was read at his wedding and was a hallmark of his life:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
Love never ends.
-- St. Paul
At Billy’s request, there will be no service. A tree can be planted in Billy’s memory through the Arbor Day Foundation; memorial donations may be made in his name to the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians or the National Park Foundation. However, simply thinking of and remembering him with love and fondness is all he would have wanted. “Hey, man. You be cool.”
