Emeritus Trustee William “Bill” Ernest Steele III ’61 (MBA ’63) was a meticulous, friendly Fort Worth entrepreneur. He died April 23 in Fort Worth. Without him, TCU’s current Frog Horn might not exist.

In 1994, fellow alumni tapped Steele to help envision a new and improved horn. He called Trustee and Burlington Northern Railroad CEO Gerald Grinstein to advance the plan.

Upon seeing the finished product, Steele was blown away. “I was just electrified,” he told TCU Magazine in 2010. “Nobody else will ever have one of these. No other school.”

His son William Steele IV ’90 said Steele took pride in bringing the 3,000-pound apparatus to life. “He always wanted to do something for TCU, but something tangible.”

Steele met his wife, Sug King, at TCU. Three of the couple’s children, Elizabeth Boswell ’88 MBA and twins William and George Steele ’90, attended the university, as did Vivienne Fontaine Boswell Woods ’18 and Elizabeth Boswell Wiley, two of their 16 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“He really loved his grandkids,” Elizabeth Boswell said. “He went to every soccer game, every ballet recital, every football game.”

“He really loved his grandkids. He went to every soccer game, every ballet recital, every football game.”
Elizabeth Boswell

Born in Houston, Steele graduated from R.L. Paschal High School in Fort Worth before earning bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and physics at TCU.

In a successful multi-industry career, he was president of K&S Manufacturing, one of the largest lawn care equipment producers in the United States. He also was involved in industrial real estate. He was ambitious, said daughter Leslie Edwards. “He was still talking in the hospital about starting another company.”

Steele’s children said he never missed a TCU board meeting and admired Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr., whom he considered a friend.

“When you have these people on your board … like Bill Steele, that have built businesses, they know about execution,” said Ralph Manning ’92, a longtime family friend. “TCU is now a university with national recognition and acclaim. It’s been a tremendous asset for the city. And I know he is as proud of that as anything he did on his own in business.”