August 25, 1949 – March 9, 2024
Wilke Denton English of Belton, TX, passed away peacefully on March 9, 2024 at the age of 74. He went by W.D., Dr. E., or Doc to friends, colleagues, and students; Dad and Gramps to family.
W.D. was born on August 25, 1949, the only son of Crockett and Jerry English (both deceased), in Austin, TX. He attended Austin High School, the same school as his mother. He went on to graduate from U.T. Austin with his Ph.D. and remained a lifelong fan of the Longhorns. He taught marketing and statistics at the University of Georgia at Athens, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, University of Texas at El Paso, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, and Texas A&M of Central Texas. He published a wide variety of academic works, including case studies and statistics textbooks. He loved teaching and was beloved by generations of students whose lives he impacted, as demonstrated by the many teaching awards he received through the years.
W.D. will be remembered for his eccentric ways and quirky sense of humor. He believed duct-tape and WD-40 could fix just about anything. He had various aphorisms like, “Old ugly is better than old nothing,” “No good deed goes unpunished, “Dedicated to thrift,” and “This too shall pass.” He was a loving father who encouraged his kids to be nerdy like their dad and embrace education. He enjoyed playing the piano, guitar, and working around the house on handy-man projects, which he jokingly referred to as “banging boards.” He put those skills to work renovating and renting multiple homes in the Belton area.
At any given time, he had three TV screens going: one set to the Weather Channel (he kept an ongoing spreadsheet that compared the predicted and actual temperature data), one set to ESPN (he enjoyed sports, especially football, and especially the Longhorns), and one on a channel featuring religious programming. His Christian faith was a source of healing and conviction. He read, marked, studied, and memorized his Bible and was a long-time member at Temple Bible Church, in Temple, TX, where he regularly kept the nursery on Sunday mornings.
He is survived by three children: Christine (married to David Hughes), Adam (married to Charissa), and David (married to Ernesto), and one stepdaughter, Jessica Storey Adams (married to Rett). Christine and David have three children, Rachel (married to Thomas), Rebekah, and Iain; Adam and Charissa have one child, Cassidy. W.D. had two great-grandchildren: Harold and Annie (Rachel and Thomas Hardy).
As they say in Georgia, “It’s been a little piece of heaven.”
