The Supreme Executive Committee of Kappa Sigma Fraternity has selected Brother Bill Wittliff of the Tau Chapter at the University of Texas as the 2012 Kappa Sigma Man of the Year. He will be the 79th Brother in the history of Kappa Sigma Fraternity to receive the distinguished award. Brother Wittliff is a 1959 initiate of the Tau Chapter at the University of Texas and is a resident of Austin, Texas.
Brother Wittliff is a distinguished photographer and writer whose photographs have been exhibited in the United States and aboard and are the subject of three books, Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy, La Vide Brinca (UT Press: 2006), and A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dive (UT Press: 2007).
As a screenwriter and producer, his credits include The Perfect Storm, The Black Stallion, Legends of the Fall, Lonesome Dove, and others. Co-founder, with his wife Sally, of the highly regarded Encino Press, Bill Wittliff is also a past president and Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters, a recipient of the Texas Book Festival Bookend Award, and the Texas Medal of Arts. He is also a member of the historic Texas Philosophical Society and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In 2008 Brother Wittliff was asked to join the board of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. and was inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame. Together the Wittliffs also founded, with the support of Texas State University, the Wittliff Collections, which include the Southwestern Writers Collection and Southwestern & Mexican Photography Collection. Brother Wittliff is the 5th initiate of the Tau Chapter of Kappa Sigma Fraternity to receive the Man of the Year Award and joins Brothers Cyrus Smith, ‘37; Beauford H. Jester, ‘47; Denton A. Cooley, ‘64; and Richard E. Rainwater, ‘96. The Man of the Year Banquet will be held for Brother Wittliff in Austin in the fall of 2012. Brother Wittliff was nominated by his fellow Brothers from the Tau Chapter at the University of Texas.
Photos Courtesy of Mike Coughlan (Hendrix Coughlan Media)
