Have you ever admired someone you never met? The two of you never crossed paths but some way or another you read about this person and fell in love with them without ever having exchanged so much as a “Hello.” For example, if I could pick a date with any politician, living or dead, it would most definitely be Alexander Hamilton because that man defined the phrase “started from the bottom, now we here.” He lost his family at age 16 and yet ended up creating the National Bank of the United States. Maybe you do not share my obsession with historical figures, but maybe you love celebrities or Hall of Fame athletes and either way, you understand this admiration phenomenon I’m referring to: we love people we’ve never met.

This phenomenon also occurs when you read about Bob Williams, a 92-year-old Excelsior-based man who passed away recently. He’s not a phenomenal politician nor did he run four times around a track in three minutes, but that’s exactly what makes him so commendable. He’s an average man, like you and me, who had the ability and the desire to improve his community.

Williams was an editor, reporter, photographer, ad salesperson for two local newspapers, and wrote informative historical novels set locally. This conglomerated love of writing and his home town started back in 1939 when Minnetonka High School was still Excelsior High School as Williams first wrote for our own paper, Breezes. He expanded that love of news by attending the University of Minnesota and majoring in journalism. Later on, after serving in the Army Air Corps in World War II, Williams put his passions for business and writing together as the local newspaper editor and public relations director for the theatre that we all know and love from our childhoods: Old Log Theatre in Greenwood. He continuously worked to spread news and commend his hometown of Excelsior by giving walking tours of the area, having perfect attendance at Excelsior Rotatory meetings, and speaking to grade school classes along with senior citizen groups about newspapers and the history of the local area.

However, Excelsior, to Williams, was not simply a place that used to have a Big Island Ferris wheel or may construct a hotel in the nearby future. It was history, which he and his wife Patty watched pass by for 59 years. Living and changing before his eyes, Williams watched, reported, and informed the public about Excelsior from the moment the first mayor ran the city through this very year. Perhaps that is a historian’s most beloved accomplishment: being able to live in your own passion. Beyond this life-fulfilling achievement, Williams was also named the Excelsior-Lake Minnetonka Chamber of Commerce Person of the Year and the WCCO-Radio “Good Neighbor.” Like your average father, he enjoyed time with his three sons, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Although I never met the man, he changed my world by partaking in Breezes. He ran all parts of this program and without someone as dedicated as Williams, I doubt Breezes would be the same today. But, that’s how history works. People change the world, leaving their memory to the people who come next. From the current Breezes staff, a warm thank you and congratulations on a life well-done goes out to Bob Williams.