William Call


My full name is William Anson Call. I was born in Afton (Star Valley), Wyoming in 1938. I am a descendent of Anson Call who lived in Nauvoo, Illinois and came to Utah with the Mormon pioneers. My great grandfather, Anson Vasco Call, was one of the original settlers in Star Valley. I am the third son of Reuel Thomas and Verna Anson Call. I graduated from Afton Elementary School in 1952 and from Star Valley High School in 1956. I attended Utah State University from 1956 to 1958 and served as a Mormon missionary in Northern Mexico from 1958 to 1961. I enrolled at Brigham Young University in 1961. I was married to Helen Field in 1962. We are the parents of eight children. I received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1963 and a Master of Arts degree in 1965 from BYU. I majored in music composition. I attended the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana from 1965 to 1968 and was awarded a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from that institution in 1971 also in music composition.

     I became a full time employee in my fatherʼs oil company in 1968. The name of the company was originally Caribou Four Corners, Inc. In 1985 it was changed to Maverik Country Stores Inc. I served as vice president of retail sales from 1971 to 1983 when I became the president of the company. In 2000 when I retired, “Maverik” had grown to be the largest marketer of motor fuels and convenience foods in the Mountain West.

     In 2003 I joined with my daughter Kristen to form iFuel LLC. This company developed a patented automated payment and pump control system and from 2004 to 2006 pioneered the operation of a fully-automated, Internet-controlled, standalone fueling station. From 2006 to 2008 the company developed a broader version of its payment platform for use in retail stores, which it has also patented. It is currently marketing a loyalty program to fuel marketers based on its previously developed technology.

     In addition to my career as a businessman, I am a composer and writer. What my writings and music have in common is their starting place, shared perspective, and simultaneous development. The two have grown up together; they interact with and feed on each other; and each is what it is in relation to the other. My books are about culture, aesthetics, philosophy, and religion as viewed from a studied/classical but nonetheless frontier, individualistic, Western American, perspective.
My music while reverencing classical forms and models, looks to melodic and harmonic styles found in the hymns, ballads, and dance tunes I grew up with in my youth. I find the juxtaposition of old and new in my writing and music, because they both conflict with and enhance each other, exciting and stimulating.

     My cultural heritage is founded on a combination of American individualistic democracy and frontier American Mormonism. These two, although they have traveled a rocky road together, compliment and build on each other. The one is supportive of the other; neither could be what it is without the other. Joseph Smithʼs Mormonism is as naive on the one hand as it is uniquely original on the other. What it lacks in polish and finesse it makes up for in exuberance and daring. It is still in its infancy. It remains rough and undeveloped. I view my task as one of first recognizing its potential and then raising it up and carrying it on to higher states of maturity, definition, and significance.

 

BIOGRAPHY