William Gene Towry

William Gene Towry, age 99, passed away at home in El Paso, Texas on Saturday, January 10, 2026. He had been under hospice care and was in the company of his daughter Pamela. Bill was born on November 26, 1926 in St. Joseph, Missouri. He graduated from West Aurora (Illinois) High School. After discharge from the United States Army in 1947, he attended the Texas College of Mines and Metallurgy (now the University of Texas at El Paso.) Bill met his wife, Marietta Windsor Towry while in the college band program there. He received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Kansas State University and initially worked as a chemist for General Mills. The Towrys married in 1951 and eventually settled in Dallas, Texas where they lived for 31 years. In 1984, the couple returned to El Paso. Bill worked as a pharmaceutical representative for Wyeth/Pfizer Laboratories until his retirement in 1992.

Bill was introduced to the sport of fencing while dating Marietta. Her father, Colonel Tinnin Windsor was a Fencing Master. They soon established themselves as elite fencers and by 1968, both Bill and Marietta were in the “Top 25” at the United States Team Trials for the XIX Olympiad. Together, they were involved in fencing as highly competitive athletes and later as coaches for over seventy years. They ran the Dallas Fencer’s Club for many years and Bill served multiple terms as President of the North Texas Division of the Amateur Fencer’s League of America.

In 1986, Bill and Marietta opened the El Paso Fencing Center and started their “Texas Excalibur” fencing team. They established the non-profit El Paso Fencing Education Association Inc. during those years. Bill coached fencers to national and international successes over the decades. Neither Bill or wife Marietta’s name stands alone in the fencing community; they were simply “The Towrys.” Bill was a member of USA Fencing and the United States Fencing Coaches’ Association and had achieved the level of “Prévôt” from the Académie d’Armes Internationale. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame for both the North Texas (2009) and South Texas (2022) divisions of the United States Fencing Association. He received the “Award of Merit” from the United States Fencing Coaches’ Association for “career contributions in the coaching and teaching of fencing.”

William G. Towry was preceded in death by his parents, Vernal Clyde Towry and Laura Mae Foster, his wife, Marietta Windsor Towry, his son-in-law, Russell Alan Church, and his brother, Robert Verne Towry. He is survived by daughter, Pamela Towry Church, his niece and nephew, Bonnie (Towry) Mansell and James Towry and their families.

A celebration of life with live-stream access will be held on Saturday, February 21, 2026 at 2:00 pm at Sunset Funeral Homes-West, 480 N. Resler Dr., El Paso, Texas. He will be interred at Fort Bliss National Cemetery next to Marietta, his wife of seventy years.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Bill’s name to St Francis on the Hill Episcopal Church, 6280 Los Robles Dr. El Paso, Texas 79912.