User:Joshuaberry1/William B Berry

William Barton Berry was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on July 12, 1935. He lived there until the age of 8 when his father moved the family to Tyler, Texas.

Even as a boy, Billy was an adept fisherman. His love of fishing remained throughout his life. He was know to carry at least two fishing rods and a tackle box in the back seat of his Lexus GS 300.

Billy was an accomplished pianist and regularly placed second behind Van Cliburn in recitals. He continued to play music through out his life.

He had a short stint playing football early in high school, but later took up writing a sports column in the school paper called "The Berry Patch" circa 1951.

Bill went to the University of Oklahoma and finished in 3 years before entering Baylor Medical School. Bill went on to become a Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeon after training in Dr. Michael DeBakey's program in Houston, TX.

While in private practice in the mid 1970's Bill invented the Berry Sternal Needle Holder for use in open heart surgery. The Berry Sternal Needle Holder became the most popular and widely selling Sternal Needle Holder in the world and continued to be so for many years.

Dr. Berry was married with 3 sons. He died in an automobile accident on November 19, 2003 at around 8:19pm.