WP #1

William Bill Atkinson

Died at 82
lived in liberal, Kansas, USA
Born: Feb 25, 1931
Died: Jan 5, 2014
Spouse of Lynn Burton
Children: Brad Atkinson (My dad) and Mike Atkinson
Parents: Charles R. Hogan
and Kathleen Storey Atkinson
Brother of Jeanne Boyd Longmont, CO
My grandad lived a simple and long life. He hunted and fished, played golf and
grew up working with his dad and uncles on a cattle farm. In high school and soon
after he would herd cattle surrounded Burdick in Kansas, in the 1960s. Soon, to
herd cattle from Texas all the way up to Ohio where the trains shipped the cattle to
the cities. During his senior year of high school at Diamond Valley High School in
Burdick (graduating in 1954) an oil well was drilled on the family property and
sparked his interest in Geology and petroleum geology. After he graduated from
Kansas university with a degree in Geology, he worked as a Geological Survey in
lawrence to a petroleum geologist for Colorado Oil and Gas in Liberal from 1955 to
1961 and as an independent petroleum geologist in Liberal from 1961 until he
retired in early 1990. During this time he located places to drill oil wells and a few
family wells are still going today. His entire life he was an outgoing man who loved
the outdoors, loved watching Redskin football and KU basketball, and loved his
family dearly.
On a sad note however, later in his life he suffered from Meningitis, the swelling of
the lining of the brain, and lost his some of his memory for a period of his life. He
did reclaim most if not all of his memory, but he had to relearn how to talk, read,
and relearn the life he once lived. Most of the wells had to be sold off to pay for his
medical expenses