Bill Hoover Sr., Grosse Pointe

Bill Hoover Sr.: Grosse Pointe teacher had personal touch

Audiovisual specialist loved photography, boating

Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News

Grosse Pointe --Mechanical things fascinated Bill Hoover Sr., but respect for people guided him as a teacher at Grosse Pointe South High School.

Mr. Hoover, who died Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009, at his Grosse Pointe Woods home, used to say, "There is no system to replace individual attention."

He was 80.

For nearly four decades, Mr. Hoover was the audiovisual teacher with a doctorate and wide-ranging interests he was willing to share. He was an integral part of every Grosse Pointe South dance, play, water ballet and film production. He designed and built the school's graduation stage.

On March 14, 1968, Mr. Hoover made the only known audio recording of a speech given at the high school by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., just three weeks before the civil rights leader was assassinated. It can be heard on the Grosse Pointe Historical Society Web site.

Mr. Hoover met Eula Horn while they attended Miami University. They were married for 57 years. Before coming to Grosse Pointe, Mr. Hoover taught in Ohio and with his wife at Sculthorpe Air Force Base in England.

He sought precision in his own work, but always was generous to others. He was an inveterate tinkerer and storyteller.

Growing up in Portsmouth, Ohio, he met many professional football players boarding at his grandmother's house while playing for the team that later became the Detroit Lions.

He developed interests in photography and boating. He worked for a radio station and designed a factory assembly line in Cincinnati. He invented and sold the rights to a camera lens extender and wrote about air rifles and early computers. He invented a football board game and created educational filmstrips. He was a co-founder of the Childbirth Education Service. His writing and photography was published in national journals. He earned a doctorate in education from Wayne State University.

An avid fisherman, Mr. Hoover enjoyed trips to the Ohio River and Lake St. Clair with his grandchildren.

He is survived by his wife, his daughter Valerie Pryzdatek, son Bill Hoover Jr., and nine grandchildren. Services were Sunday.

dguthrie@detnews.com (313) 222-2548