Obituary: Bill Mares, 1940-2024 

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• Courtesy
• Bill Mares

Bill Mares, author, beekeeper, brewer, legislator and teacher, died at home on July 29, 2024, following a diagnosis of cancer. Thanks to hospice and Vermont's Act 39 “death with dignity” law, he was able to see many friends in his last weeks and end his life without pain.

Bill was born on November 8, 1940, in St. Louis, Mo. His father, Joseph Mares, was a chemical engineer and his mother, Delia Mares, was a high school teacher and foreign policy activist. From his parents, he received a love of travel and books. He was raised in Dickinson, Texas, and graduated from St. John's School in Houston. He earned a cum laude degree in Middle East history from Harvard College in 1962 and an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve for six years.

click to enlarge

• Courtesy
• Bill Mares

After three professional stumbles — the Foreign Service, banking and law school — he fell into journalism as a reporter and photographer in Chicago and eventually worked for newspapers in five states. Although he never intended to become a writer, books found him through his friends and his own curiosity.

Bill's books are an eclectic mix covering topics from Marine Corps boot camp to economic democracy, from war memorials to presidential fishing, from desert travel to beekeeping. He wrote the majority of them with friends and experts in their fields. Four of the books were about his principal hobbies: running, fishing, beekeeping, singing and brewing beer. In all, Bill wrote or coauthored 20 books, including his memoir, Better To Be Lucky Than Smart. The final piece of luck was to finish this last book in the couple of months before he died.

Bill taught history and American foreign policy for two decades at Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg, Vt. He also taught more than 1,000 potential beekeepers through CVU's evening Access classes and classes at Burlington's Intervale. His 30 marathons included three “Bostons,” a couple of “New Yorks” and numerous “Burlingtons.” Bill's singing "career" began with the Harvard Glee Club and ended with Aurora in Burlington. He also served three terms in the Vermont legislature, where his proudest accomplishments were to be vice chair of the Vermont Bicentennial Commission and sponsor of a law enabling the creation of brewpubs in Vermont. In all this, he aspired to be more than a dilettante and less than a Renaissance man.

Bill served on numerous nonprofit boards: the Intervale Foundation, Fletcher Free Library, Vermont Brewers Association, Vermont Beekeepers Association, VTDigger, the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, Food 4 Farmers and the Vermont Council on World Affairs. He gave generously to a wide variety of organizations, schools and causes, in particular the University of Vermont, Harvard and Pennsylvania State University.

He could not have done any of this without Christine Hadsel, his best friend and wife of 53 years. Survivors include his wife, Chris; son Timothy, his wife, Natt, and grandson Bo of Thailand; son Nicholas, his wife, Chelsea, and daughters, Delia and Vivian, of South Burlington, Vt.; and brother Jan, his wife, Lois, of Washington, D.C., and their children, Joe Mares and Dorothy McCuaig. Another brother, Tom, died in 1957.

Bill was a faithful member of the Episcopal Church. His home parish was St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Colchester, Vt., where there will be a service to celebrate his life on Saturday, August 10, 10 a.m. All are welcome.

There will also be a gathering of friends and relations to tell stories and have a good time in his memory in September. Friends are invited to donate to their favorite charity or to VTDigger, the Green Mountain Club or the Apis Fund at the Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont.