William Bennett Thompson

William Bennett Thompson, 82, of Hillsboro passed away Friday, September 15, 2023. A visitation will be held in his memory at Marshall & Marshall Funeral Directors in Hillsboro on Saturday, September 30, 2023, 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. with a private family gathering afterwards.

Bill was born July 8, 1941, in Oklahoma City to William David Thompson and Earline Gilder. He won an academic scholarship to Oklahoma University, where he was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and met Ruth Ann Harms, president of OU’s Alpha Delta Pi Chapter, on a blind date. They married in August 1964. Bill graduated from OU Law School in 1965 and passed the Oklahoma Bar before serving as a Lieutenant detailed to Judge Advocate General’s Corps at Fort Holabird, Maryland until 1967.

He practiced law for 44 years with licenses in Oklahoma, New York, Michigan, Illinois, Hawaii and Texas. He worked for a Wall Street law firm and as legal counsel for corporations including S.S. Kresge (later Kmart Corp.), Pullman Inc. and German company Robert Bosch Corp. He later worked in small business litigation and on civil rights cases in state and federal courts. He and Ann moved from Chicago to Hillsboro in 2009 to be near Ann’s mother, Ruth Coleman, and stepfather, Bill Coleman, of Woodbury.

Bill was a member of the University Club of Chicago and the Economic Club of Chicago and was passionate about tennis, both as a player and a loyal spectator of the U.S. Open tennis championship in Flushing Meadows, New York for over 40 years, where he enjoyed watching matches with Ann, his daughters and many friends.

Since 1990 he developed the “Loophole Bill” brand promoting brief, amusing summaries of oddball law cases. Bill was known in the Hillsboro community for his urbane wit, his love of droll cartoons in The New Yorker and his fondness for classical music and the arts.

He is survived by his wife, his brother, David and his wife Linda Thompson of Edmond, Oklahoma, and his daughters Laura and her husband Tom, of Ayr, Scotland and Amy of Edinburgh, Scotland.

In lieu of flowers, Ann has requested donations to the Boys & Girls Club of Hill County, P.O. Box 554, Hillsboro 76645 or a charity of choice.