Hill Williams

Hill Williams (1926–2017) was a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest. He graduated from Pasco High School in 1943, and attended the University of Washington, receiving a BA in Journalism in 1948 and an MA in Communications in 1966.

Williams was a reporter for the “Tri-City Herald” from 1948 to 1952, then spent several decades as a “Seattle Times” science writer, retiring in 1991. His outstanding reporting was rewarded with numerous regional excellence-in-journalism awards. In 1984 he was honored to receive the AAAS-Westinghouse Award, presented by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for distinguished science writing in newspapers with over 100,000 daily circulation.

A lifetime member of the National Association of Science Writers, Williams was the author of two other books for Washington State University Press—a perennial best-seller and 2003 Washington State Book Award winner, “The Restless Northwest: A Geological Story,” about the geological processes that shaped the Pacific Northwest, and “Made in Hanford: The Bomb that Changed the World,” which traces the amazing, tragic story of Hanford’s plutonium factory.