Northpinellas: William Hoskins, 76, dies

PALM HARBOR -- William M. "Bill" Hoskins, the teacher and artist who founded the annual Palm Harbor fine arts, crafts and music festival, died Monday (June 3, 2002) at home.

Mr. Hoskins, who was 76, and his wife, Louise, moved to Palm Harbor in 1974, settling on a house at the top of downtown's Florida Avenue. The home overlooked the Hill Building, built in 1896 as a general store by Redden Hill. Though the building was badly deteriorating, the Hoskinses decided to renovate it and make it the home of their antique and art store.

For the gallery's grand opening in October 1975, Mr. Hoskins gathered some of his artist friends for the First Annual Palm Harbor Blue Grass Music and Antique and Art Festival. The event featured a fish fry and square dancing in the street.

It has evolved into an annual December art festival that usually draws more than 30,000 visitors.

"I had an idea it would become popular but not as popular as it is," Mr. Hoskins told the St. Petersburg Times in 1997. "It was to inculcate an appreciation for art and the historical buildings we have in Palm Harbor. It did all right."

Others say it did better than all right. The festival not only grew but helped bring attention to Palm Harbor's historic downtown, which is now seeing new investment and getting county redevelopment assistance.

"He believed in old downtown Palm Harbor before a lot of other people did," said former County Commissioner Sallie Parks of Palm Harbor. "It's a real loss to our community not to have Bill Hoskins around."

In 1986, the festival was taken over by the Greater Palm Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce. As part of the agreement, each year $1,000 from the proceeds of the festival are used to fund an art scholarship to a Palm Harbor student in the Hoskinses' names.

"To me, he's a real art icon," Mrs. Hoskins said Tuesday. She said it was not easy bringing art to a small town.

"Bill's heart was very deep in it (the art festival)," she said. "We didn't make any money. We just had fun doing it."

Raised in Hazard, Ky., Mr. Hoskins lied about his age and joined the Army at age 16. A World War II veteran, he received the Bronze Star, a Purple Heart and a Good Conduct Medal for service in Europe during the D-day invasion.

Upon his return, he completed high school, then graduated from the University of Kentucky Eastern State College and attended the Cincinnati Art Institute.

The Hoskinses moved to St. Petersburg in 1955. Mr. Hoskins attended Stetson Law School for two years, worked in insurance and then became an art teacher at Oak Grove Middle School in Clearwater. He taught for 17 years.

"Bill was an incredible art teacher," said Pegoty Lopez, a friend and former principal at Oak Grove. "He got kids to look at obscure things in different ways. He loved his vocation."

"I always saw Bill as a unity of opposites," said Lopez, now principal at Palm Harbor Middle School. "Bill could be gruff as a bear and gentle as a lamb. He could be outrageous on one hand and turn around and be very humble. He could be very raucous and then quiet. And he was that way as a teacher."

Mr. Hoskins also taught adult art education classes at Pasco-Hernando Community College for several years in the early 1980s, and spent several summers as a demonstration sculptor at Disney's Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village. He left when they asked him to trim his long hair and mustache, Mrs. Hoskins said. He also was once the art director at the Safety Harbor Museum.

But the antique and art gallery in Palm Harbor soon became Mr. Hoskins' passion. The building, which was declared historic in 1974, was used to showcase the work of local artists. At various times, it also held a kiln and a glass blower.

Mr. Hoskins' own art found many mediums, among them sculpture, oil and watercolor painting, and photography. Much of his work featured Western themes, cowboys and American Indians.

"There's no in-between with my work," he once told the Times. "People seem to either love it or hate it. When they like it, they go for it wholeheartedly."

In 1976, Hoskins won the Annual Governor's Award in the Arts. He also received a key to the city of his hometown, Hazard, where he also helped to start an art program.

His artwork slowed when he began to suffer from heart trouble and then cancer five years ago. An unfinished painting begun three years ago still sits on an easel where he once worked.

"He taught me to keep my eyes open," said his son, George. "He got me to appreciate a world that a lot of people don't see. Every day, you've got to find something new, and he always did."

In addition to his wife of 47 years, Mr. Hoskins is survived by two sons, William G. of Palm Harbor and George of Orlando; a daughter, Edie Lewison of Minneapolis; two sisters, Clara Turner of Winter Park and Sue White of Kentucky; and four grandchildren.

A visitation will be on Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m., followed by a service at 11 a.m. at the Tarpon Avenue Chapel of Thomas B. Dobies Funeral Homes, Tarpon Springs. Graveside services will follow at 2:30 p.m. at Florida National Cemetery near Bushnell in Sumter County.

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