ever have met, passed from this life on January

13,2016. He was 93.

Bill was born to Laura and Joseph Pribyl, June 18, 1922 in Jackson Minnesota. He was the youngest of seven children and the only boy. His father kept hoping for a hunting partner and finally got Bill.

From the time Bill could remember, he and his dad hunted pheasant and waterfowl every morning before school. This experience started him on a lifetime love of hunting and fishing.



After high school he moved to Minneapolis to live with his sister and attend machinist school. Then Word War II broke out and he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corp, where he became a pilot in the 57th Fighter Group. He flew P40’s early in the war and later P47’s. He was stationed in Africa, Corsica and Italy and earned several awards including a Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf cluster and seven Air Medals. He flew 150 missions and ended his service with the rank of Captain.

He took advantage of the GI Bill and earned a bachelors degree from the University of Minnesota in Chemical Engineering. Brief jobs in Bozeman, Montana and Eugene, Oregon led him and his family to St. Helens, Oregon, where Bill managed a wood treating facility for Pope and Talbot. After that plant closed he and two others started Northwest Piling, a company that supplied processed poles and piling to the wood treating industry. The company was sold to Crown Zellerbach and Bill managed several plants for Crown until his retirement. After retirement he was asked by Weyerhaeuser to work as a consultant and designed several pole and piling operations around the northwest. Bill was highly respected in the woods products industry and developed many life long friendships with business associates.



Faith was important to Bill and he was a member of the First Lutheran Church in St. Helens for over 60 years, serving the church in countless capacities. He was a self -taught musician, blessed with a beautiful tenor voice and he sang at many weddings, funerals, and concerts well into his 70’s. He was choir director at First Lutheran for many years. He also started a children’s choir, which was good enough to be invited to sing on the local radio station.