William "Bill" Bright Hooper
- Obituary
30 Jun 1933 - 15 Apr 2014  William Bright Hooper of Austin, Texas, died peacefully at home on Tuesday morning, April 15, 2014. He was born June 30, 1933 in Buckeye, Arizona, to Herschel V. Hooper, a school principal, and Ruby D. Bright Hooper. The family, which included older sister Jo Helene and younger brother Vic, spent Bill's earliest summers in California while his father earned a master's degree at Stanford. In 1950, the family moved to Ray, Arizona, where his father served as superintendent of schools. Bill graduated from Ray High School the next year then attended the University of Arizona. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Oklahoma, where he received a B.S. in chemical engineering in June 1956. Upon graduation he began working for Monsanto. After one year at the firm, he left to serve as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Chemical Corps, fulfilling his college ROTC commitment. He returned to Monsanto in 1959, working as a chemical engineer in Texas City, Texas, and after 1965 in St. Louis, Missouri. Until Bill retired in 1996, he designed and improved many chemical plants in the United States, United Kingdom, and Spain, relishing both the work and the travel. He published several papers in Chemical & Engineering News and was active in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. While at Monsanto he championed the company's Fellows program, which was developed to recognize technical contributions in engineering. He became an Engineering Fellow at Monsanto in 1977 and a Senior Fellow in 1988. In 1956 Bill fell in love with Janice Irene Mitchell after meeting her at church in Texas City. He had the audacity to tell his parents that he would marry her before asking Jan; luckily for him, she said yes. They married on December 27, 1957, and lived in near Fort McClellan, Alabama, for eighteen months before returning to Texas City. In 1963 they were joined by daughter Angela and five years later, in St. Louis, by son Will. Bill was active in Calvary Baptist Church in Texas City, in Fee Fee Baptist Church and Parkway Baptist Church in St. Louis, and in Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin, serving as a song leader, deacon, and Sunday School teacher. He loved classical music and opera (for which he designed and built an impressive high-fidelity audio system), model airplanes and aviation, and traveling with family. He and Jan visited countless countries by air and sea, including Iceland, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Russia, Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Panama, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, the Virgin Islands, Tahiti, Samoa, Australia, and New Zealand. He was especially fond of London, where he took many trips for business and pleasure, always finding an evening to hear an opera performed at Covent Garden. Since 2000, Bill and Jan have lived in Austin, Texas, where he enjoyed snow-free winters, sunshine, good Tex-Mex food and barbecue, and grandchildren, for whom he was a much-beloved Papa. Bill is survived by his wife of 56 years, Janice Hooper; daughter Angela Creager and her husband, Bill, and their children Elliot, Jameson, and Georgia; son Will Hooper and his wife, Gena, and their children Brenham, Claire, and Lucy; and many nieces and nephews. A service in celebration of Bill Hooper's life has been scheduled for 11 am, June 14, 2014 at Hyde Park Baptist Church. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorials be made to Health Sense Hospice (5555 N. Lamar, Suite K-123, Austin, TX 78751), to Hyde Park Baptist Church (3901 Speedway, Austin, TX 78751), or to the charity of one's choice. |