Hall of Fame

William Holcombe Pryor Sr.
McGill Institute Class of ’55

The father of this year’s [2003] father-son team of inductees has returned to the McGill-Toolen faculty after a 22 year hiatus, this time not as band director but as theology teacher.

Holcombe Pryor graduated from McGill Institute in 1955 and returned in 1961 as band director after graduating from Northeast Louisiana University. In 1981 he left McGill to enter the fund-raising business.

During his tenure at McT, he built a band program recognized as one of the finest in Alabama and the nation. The band numbered over a hundred members each year. In twenty years of competition, the band never received less than a Superior rating at ABA District Band Festival and received over ten Superior and Excellent ratings at the ABA State Band Festival. Over 200 band students were named to Alabama All-State Bands, including many who were First Chair, the top musicians in the state for their instrument that year. In 1976 the band was awarded the Gold Medal at the Festival of Nations in Washington, D.C. The following year, the band competed at the International Choral Festival in Rome, Italy. It was the first band ever to perform at the foot of the Papal altar in St. Peter’s Basilica. In 1979 and 1980, the band received Superior ratings in the Six Flags Over Georgia Band Festival, an invitation-only event limited to the finest bands in the United States.

Many of his former students are now professional musicians and music educators, and even more have taken his lessons in dedication, teamwork, and leadership and applied them to successful lives of service. He continues to teach and guide through his music and work for his current parish, Christ the King, through continued music education as a judge for regional band and individual competitions, as a source of help and advice for many of his friends and former students, and now as an ordained deacon for the Archdiocese of Mobile. Pryor has also been associated with the L’Arche Community in Mobile for fifteen years and serves on their Board of Directors.

Pryor and his wife of 43 years, the former Laura Bowles, have four children, all of whom attended McGill-Toolen: Judge William H. “Bill” Pryor Jr., MT ’80; David P. Pryor, MT ’81; Theresa Pryor Roca, MD, MT; and Stephen Pryor, MT.

Inducted 2003
Biography updated 5/17/05

Hall of Fame

© McGill-Toolen Catholic High School • 1501 Old Shell Road, Mobile, Alabama 36604 • 251-445-2900