William Hipkiss

William Bill John Hipkiss 1932-2008 Bill was born October 7, 1932, in Elmhurst, Queens, New York City, to William and Rita (Hamill) Hipkiss. His lone sibling was his older sister, Jacqueline Hipkiss Hines, his Jackie. Music was part of Jackie and Bills young lives. Music especially enraptured Bill, as Jackie remembered in the poem she wrote upon Bills death, Sept. 30, 2008. It begins, I wish that I could hear it now/That voice so strong and clear/A voice that drew attention/whenever he was near/It spoke of life and people/Sometimes there was a shout/But that was William Hipkiss/Its what he was about. As a boy soprano for a church function, Bill once sang "One Alone." Afterward, several girls came backstage and asked for his autograph. Bill thought it was so cool. And that did it - he caught the performing bug and never lost it. Bill played the saxophone in high school with dreams of becoming a New York jazz musician. Bill graduated from Newtown High School in NYC in 1950. He then told his mother about his plans for a musical future. She then told Bill her plans for him. "No you're not, she said, you're going to Muskegon, Michigan to attend the junior college there." And so Bill traveled to West Michigan, where he lived with his aunt. Before attending Muskegon Community College (MCC), Bill also lived in Shelby, where he attended Shelby High School for his sophomore year. During summers, he lived with his grandparents on the family farm in Shelby. He cleaned the chicken coop, picked crops, and attended 4-H meetings. It was a wonderful experience for a kid from the streets of NYC, and made for some of the best times of Bills life. As an Airman 1st Class in the U.S. Air Force, Bill was stationed in Landsberg, Germany during the Korean War. While many GI's sat around being homesick, Bill became part of the community, making many German friends. He learned to speak German fluently and enjoyed speaking it throughout his life. Bills grandmother told him, "William, you have the gift of gab, an assertion no one who ever knew Bill would question. She advised, You ought to be a lawyer!" He would. Originally considering a career in medicine, Bill eventually earned his bachelors degree from the University of Michigan in 1959, and earned his law degree from the American University of Law in 1962, after studying law at night and working days at the Justice Department in Washington, DC. In 1966, Bill returned to Muskegon, where he practiced law for 38 years. He did a stint with the Muskegon County Prosecutors Office, where he rose to chief assistant, and once considered running for circuit judge. In 1995, the Muskegon Legal Secretaries Association named Bill Boss of the Year. Bill proved himself a passionate litigator, a vocal courtroom advocate. His dramatic nature served him well not only at the bar of justice, but also on the boards, as an actor. As the Muskegon Chronicle noted after Bill passed, To the former Muskegon attorney whose passionate avocation was as an amateur actor, all the world was a stage. Bills first role was at MCC, as Tom Wingfield in playwright Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie. His first Muskegon community theater role was as an extra in Camelot. A production company needed several strong guys to lift the soprano, and talked Bill into it. This was the start of something big. Often described as bigger than life, Bill became a giant in the community theater world of West Michigan. His most famous role was Tevye, the iconic peasant Russian-Jewish milkman in the musical Fiddler on the Roof. He played Tevye in two separate productions. Bill as Tevye became the thing of legend, and was considered among the best performances in the history of Muskegon theater. Bill lived many roles - lawyer, husband, father, friend - but his most public persona projected in the theater. Among his favorite characters were King Arthur in Camelot, C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands, Cervantes/Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, King Henry II of England in The Lion in Winter, and Alfie Doolittle in My Fair Lady. In 1983, Bill and another local actor formed The New Theatre Company, and performed the two-character play Mass Appeal. Bill also became a member of The Second Drama Quartet, a popular readers-theater troupe. Bill twice played a Russian arms negotiator, Andrey Botvinnik, in the two-character play A Walk in the Woods, in Muskegon and Grand Rapids. Bill had a huge collection of rhinoceroses, not real ones, of course, but probably more than 500, in all shapes and sizes, from the size of a thimble to a medium-sized dog. It all started one day when he took his son, Bill Jr., to a zoo. There, a rhino named Roger had rubbed off his horn and a zookeeper was brushing linseed oil on Roger with a long handled broom to ease his distress. Bill and Bill Jr. were moved, thus the rhino collection began. Bill married Elizabeth LaGrande - who played one of his daughters, Hodel, in his first Muskegon production of Fiddler on the Roof on May 14, 1988, in Rockford Ill. There he was a member of First Presbyterian Church. After he retired from practicing law, Bill devoted himself to writing semi-autobiographical novels of historical fiction. He published three: Normandie: Scandal on Pier 88, Fasching and Hagerstown. Bill dreamed the impossible dream, strived to reach the unreachable star. And he made it. Bill is survived by his wife, Elizabeth; sons, William (Julie) Green, Stephen (Patricia Hodges) Hipkiss and Andrew (Heather) Hipkiss; grandchildren: Jack, Victoria, Hannah, Noah and Isaac; sister, Jacqueline Hines; aunt, Margaret Hamill; in-laws; and many nieces, nephews and cousins. A Memorial service was held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, October 4, 2008, in First Presbyterian Church, 406 N. Main, Rockford, IL, with Rev. Robert Hillenbrand officiating, and a burial in Scandinavian Cemetery. A Memorial Celebration will take place on Saturday, November 8, from 2 5 p.m. at the Frauenthal Theater on Western Avenue in Muskegon, Michigan. The family has requested that memorial contributions be sent to Muskegon Civic Theatre, 425 W. Western Avenue, Suite 401, Muskegon, MI 49440.