Stephen John Hilkin

Since I was a youngster back in the 50s I’ve been an ornery character.  My parents provided my childhood with Quality Music Awareness.  They played show tunes music and got me started playing the accordion from watching Lawrence Welk shows.  That led me to then choose the coronet as I got older.  In my high school days I picked up the drums.  Also in the 50s/early 60s, my godmother’s sister was briefly married to the famous guitarist Les Paul, known for the jazz guitar he developed.  His sound influenced many jazz and rock guitar players over the following decades.

Once in high school I played in a couple local bands.  Around the late 60s I was able to join The Laymen, a local garage band of neighbors.  We changed to pop music and then later changed the name to Khazad-Doom and developed a more eclectic, aggressive, and diverse sound (check out the Jack Eaton book Gotta Make It, it’s well worth a read).  We recorded one of the rarest albums ever pressed, Level 6-1/2, which had a run of only 240 copies.

In 1970 my spleen went bad, destroying my platelet cells, and I had it removed.  Thirty-eight years later, I started to grow another, this time destroying my red blood cells, and I again had it removed.  When the band broke up in 1971, I found a job working in a record distributor (Lieberman Enterprises/Susan Distributors).  I started loading and unloading trucks.  That led to stocking the bins, and I then became the 45s buyer, purchasing for over 300 stores throughout the Midwest.  I moved on to manage a Lowe’s Record Store in Addison, IL; that led to meeting the owners of the Corporation Pub.  I did some rock’n’roll spinning (DJ work) for them in between bands like Kansas and other Chicago bands.  When the disco era started coming on, I was a DJ at numerous night clubs in the western suburbs of Chicago, First mainly at Granny’s and then at the Stardust Bowling Lanes, after it expanded from 40 lanes to 80.

While working at that club, I came out west to visit Moscow, ID for the first time in 1972, then again in ’74, and in 1977 I finally decided to move to Moscow.  There I met the members who started “Creative Workshops”.  I became the “Sign Guy” for the Moscow-Pullman area.  While working for CW, I became the president of the corporation for a 10-year stint.  We were responsible for creating the event posters for the Lionel Hampton Jazz Fest, and helped the attending artists sell their albums, tapes, and CDs.  For a decade, I met many famous artists through that kind of work, including Clint Eastwood, Lou Rawls, and many others.  In 1994, the Workshops broke up, and I started my own business, Cutting Edge Signs - a 30-year biz.

I had a bout with Hodgkin’s-Lymphoma cancer fourteen years ago.  I was able to beat that one.  In mid-2020, I was diagnosed with HPV throat cancer.  This one was not curable.  I have made a valiant effort over the years to knock it back, but it has taken its toll on me, and I will not beat this one.

During the 2009 recession, my wife and I purchased two small sports cars and joined The Pacific Northwest Roadsters and The Seattle Roadsters clubs.  We have hosted a local regional meet of close to 40 cars.  We have also helped in hosting additional National Car Meets.

I am so grateful to have been able to accomplish work for so many great clients over the past 40+ years, and to have some quality life experiences over those years.  Thank you all for supporting me and my health challenges these past four years.  I’m very grateful for your support.  See you in the afterlife, may God bless you with good health to have a long, prosperous life!!

I thank the Lord for my loving Manx cats over the last couple decades, what great companions they have been - Jazzpurr (RIP), Jade (RIP), Jazzmin, and Jaxx.  And for my very incredible wife, to have shared such a wonderful and amazing, loving, caring life with, she has been such a trooper.  Hiking, climbing in the mountains, the incredible helicopter ride while on the big island in Hawaii, all the Car Club jaunts to Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, the Wallowa Mountains, Crater Lake, and even to the highest paved road in America, over 14,000’ elevation in Colorado.  What great life experiences we have had, love you so much!

In lieu of flowers, please donate to the American Cancer Society or the Humane society of Moscow and/or Pullman.  And please get the HPV vaccine!

Steve is preceded in death by his parents, John and Jean Hilkin and his father-in-law, William (Bill) Maston.  He is survived by his loving wife of over 43 years, Darlene; his sisters, Diane Hilkin Banti (Gino) and Patti Hilkin Anderson; Diane’s children, Mike Gatz, Missy Gatz, and Joey Gatz; mother-in-law Florence Maston; brother-in-law Bob Maston (Diana) and daughter Leslie.