William Arthur Hodgson Memorial

William (“Bill”) Arthur Hodgson (1929-2022), had endless talents. A musician, singer and dancer, at age 11 he debuted as a tap-dancer with the Thirsk Harmonica Band in his home town of Thirsk, Yorkshire. He later played drums with various bands, and fast-became the guest singer with many famous orchestras.
In 1954, Bill emigrated to Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, where he soon met and married psychiatric nursing student, Christina Wilna (“Willy”) Hodgson. Music took backstage for a more stable career: Bill had joined the RAF in England, so joined the RCAF in Portage La Prairie.
Although singing, and playing with bands were confined to weekends, Bill added theatre and musicals to his repertoire. He played Menelaus, King of Sparta, in the Greek play, “Orestes,” and was the lead voice and character as Curly McLain, in Rogers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma.” His daughter, Heather, then just a young girl, remembers how awe-struck she was watching her dad perform on stage in a huge cowboy hat, and singing: “The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye…”!
Bill’s career—as a carpenter, cabinet-maker, builder, and structural engineer with the RCAF—spanned 55 years; and as a hobby, he taught himself to carve and build model airplanes that he flew with the Moose Jaw Flying Club.
Every aspect of working with wood became Bill’s passion: from building model airplanes out of balsa wood on the dining room table, to carving Celtic spoons out of basswood, designing and building furniture that graced the Hodgson home; working on construction projects as a Hanger 7 Master carpenter at Bushell Park Airbase, Moose Jaw, and ultimately, supervising RCAF building projects at remote northern Canadian airbases like Resolute Bay and Alert Bay, where he soon made friends with many local Inuit people.
Bill fast became an expert in the idiosyncrasies and features of working with every kind of wood: working with Maple and Basswood were his favorites.
The William Arthur Hodgson Memorial Award is presented annually to a Sask Polytechnic student of carpentry who is on the same path Bill travelled. It would have warmed his heart to know this award might provide some financial assistance so a student could better focus on his or her love of becoming a carpenter.