Making friends with all

Their 1,500-square-foot geodesic dome home is built on a hill, providing a perfect watch tower for the neighborhood. About 20 houses are visible from the ground-floor level. The view from the cupola stretches for miles. Regardless of their living quarters, be it in a unique house or a basement apartment, Sue and Will Hille are the kind of people who always keep a close eye on their neighborhood. For that, and other kind gestures, the Hilles have been named the 2005 South Side Good Neighbor winners. They will receive a catered block party and a commemorative plaque.

“They are committed to service,” said Linda Minckler, the neighbor who nominated the couple. “They are committed to making the community as a whole better and narrowing it down to making our street more cohesive.”

The Hilles, both 71, have spent their lives serving people. They met at a teachers college in River Forest, Ill., and worked as teachers in their earlier days.

Will, an Ohio native, was a pastor who served at St. John’s Lutheran Church before retiring eight years ago. Sue, a native of California, was the director of Spokane Children Abuse and Neglect Prevention Center, a nonprofit organization that works with at-risk parents and their children. She retired in 1999.

They moved to Seventh Avenue nearly 10 years ago, after raising a family in a more desirable section of the South Hill. They knew the Sherman Street neighborhood because their youngest son, 40-year-old Duane, lives on Seventh near South Hatch Street.

It didn’t take long before the Hilles made a statement in the neighborhood, and not only because of their home and interesting fountain-and-rocks landscaping that fills two lots.

Sue, the more talkative of the two, pumped new life into the neglected neighborhood crime-prevention Block Watch program. She’s been the Block Watch captain for about nine years, getting neighbors together, keeping them in touch with one another and educating them on whom to call when there’s a problem in a neighborhood that has had its share of unsavory characters over the years.

The Hilles’ most generous community act is their annual barbecue. The invitation is extended to everyone in the neighborhood, which amounts to a party that has grown from about 30 people the first year to more than 80 last year.

When the date fits their summer plans, the Hilles host the barbecue on the same night as the national Night Out Against Crime program. In the past, they’ve arranged for firefighters and law enforcers to visit the barbecue.

This year’s barbeque is in the works for the fall.

“We believe in community,” Will said. “And you create community by getting to know people.”

Some of the guests at the annual cookout are the residents of Eagle Crest, an apartment building on South Hatch Street that caters to the disabled. Will builds a ramp for the guests in wheelchairs.

For Eagle Crest residents who are unable to make it across the street, the Hilles provide takeout food.

“They just open their house,” Minckler said. “Everybody is welcome to come in.

“Not a lot of people do that in this day and age.”

The architecture is not the only topic of conversation once inside the house. Will’s hobby is building model airplanes, and Sue has made a career out of collecting, polishing and displaying rocks.

Airplanes and polished rocks are shown throughout the house.

Because of medical setbacks – Will had a stroke in January and Sue was debilitated due to a fall – the couple were forced to put their hobbies on hold.

However, things have settled down, and the Hilles are back to their routines.

Just the other day, Sue was working in the yard when a man walked by and asked if he could work for pay. Not surprisingly, Sue helped him out.