Roland Kenneth “Ken” Towery, 93, formerly of Uvalde, died on May 4, 2016, in Austin. He was born on Jan. 25, 1923, in Monroe County, Mississippi to Lonie Belle (Cowart) and Wiley Azof Towery. The family moved to Texas in 1924, and Towery grew up on a farm in South Texas. Entering the U.S. Army on his 18th birthday, he served during World War II in defense of the Philippines, where he was captured in 1942 at the fall of Corregidor and interned as a prisoner of war in China for three and one-half years. Among other decorations, he holds the Purple Heart and Presidential Unit Citation with two Oak Leaf Clusters. Towery entered Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde in 1946, as the first student enrolled in the history of that school, which was being opened on what had been an old U.S. Army Air Field. He lived on campus and could conveniently walk the 3 miles into town. While a student at SWTJC, he met Louise Cook, of Knippa, Texas. They married on May 4, 1947, in Houston. On the day of his death, they had been married for 69 years. After graduation in Uvalde, he enrolled at Texas A&M University. Unfortunately due to recurring illness he had to withdraw from A&M in November of 1949. According to Veterans Administration rules, he could not enroll again until he could prove he possessed “work-tolerance.” To demonstrate work-tolerance he got a job as a reporter with the newspaper in Cuero. That chance happening changed his life. In 1955, while managing editor for the Cuero Daily Record, he received the Pulitzer Prize for his series of stories exposing fraud and corruption in the Texas Veterans Land Program that helped imprison longtime Land Commissioner James Bascom Giles on charges of conspiracy to commit theft. In 1956, Towery joined the Capitol Staff of Newspapers, Inc. in Austin, covering state government and politics. In 1963, he moved to Washington to work as press secretary, and later as an aide to U.S. Sen. John Tower of Texas, serving for six years. Towery’s years of government service included seven years as deputy and assistant director of the United States Information Agency, as well as 10 years as a board member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting where he was twice elected as chairman of the board. Towery was involved in numerous political campaigns including managing two of Tower’s reelection bids. He was deputy press secretary in the 1980 Ronald Reagan campaign for president during the General Election, managed President Richard Nixon’s Texas campaign during the 1968 presidential campaign, and was involved in the Barry Goldwater campaign for the presidency in 1964. He was also active in management or as consultant in a number of state and congressional campaigns. In addition, Towery owned several weekly newspapers in North Texas, including The Floyd County Hesperian- Beacon in Floydada, the Crosby County News & Chronicle, and the Belton Journal. He was inducted into the Panhandle Press Association Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Texas Newspaper Foundation Hall of Fame in 2015. Towery wrote his memoir, “The Chow Dipper,” published in 1994, about his experiences as a prisoner of war and his years of involvement in journalism and politics. The book was named for his experience, while a prisoner of war, of being chosen to apportion scant food equally to the other prisoners. Towery later wrote, “Nothing in the secular world, the world apart from my family, has approached the honor of being chosen ‘chow dipper’ by starving men” – the Pulitzer Prize was not as meaningful as being the chow dipper. Towery is survived by his wife; one daughter, Alice Gilroy and husband, Leonard, of Austin; one son, Roland Kenneth Towery Jr., of Baltimore; four grandchildren, Roland Kenneth Towery III and wife, Jamie, of Savannah, Georgia, Rachel Sines and husband, David, of Winter Garden, Florida, Athena Towery of Baltimore, Maryland, and Brandon Gilroy of Austin; and three great-grandchildren, Watson Sterner of Baltimore, Maryland and Archer Towery and Ezra Towery, both of Savannah, Georgia. He was preceded in death by his parents, seven brothers and two sisters. The family received friends from 4 to 6 p.m. on May 8, 2016, at Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Home, 3125 N. Lamar Blvd., in Austin. Funeral services were held at 10 a.m. on May 9, 2016, at Weed-Corley-Fish Chapel, followed by interment at the Texas State Cemetery.
WEED-CORLEY-FISH FUNERAL HOME, WWW.WCFISH.COM