Bill Ludlow

William "Bill" Ludlow, 84, of Cape Girardeau died Monday, Feb. 20, 2017, at his home.

Bill was a native of Riverside, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. He was born April 9, 1932, in Riverside to Thomas Harold and Anna W. Ludlow.

Bill attended public schools in Riverside and graduated in 1950 from Riverside Brookfield High School. He then went on to attend Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he graduated with a degree in chemistry. While at Cornell, Bill was a member of Chi Psi Fraternity, the Cornell crew team and the Air Force ROTC.

As a newly commissioned Air Force lieutenant, Bill was assigned to flight school in Malden, Missouri. He was then transferred to Greenville, Mississippi, Air Force Base and received his wings as a single-engine pilot. Since he opted not to extend his service time, he was assigned to fly air refueling tankers in the Strategic Air Command. This required him to transition to multi-engine aircraft training at Palm Beach Air Force Base in Florida. This worked out well since he and Sue Tyson of Portageville, Missouri, had just gotten married, and Palm Beach was a pretty good assignment. Sue was a fifth-grade teacher in Malden and, incidentally, had gotten her training at Southeast Missouri State University.

Bill and Sue were concerned raising a family in the service would be difficult due to the constant changes in assignments. Therefore, Bill left the service after approximately three years and went to work as a petrochemical salesman for what would eventually become the oil company Atlantic Richfield. He was sent to Charlotte, North Carolina, and was responsible for sales in nine southeastern states. Bill and Sue's children, Libby and Ty, were born in Charlotte.

Then the transfers began, 11 of them in total between the Houston and Philadelphia areas. Maybe they should have stayed in the service. Bill worked through several marketing positions up to director of marketing world wide for Oxirane Corp., a chemical division of Atlantic Richfield. One assignment was to establish a series of chemical distributors in Europe and South America to sell increasing volumes of glycols coming from several new plants.

Bill retired in 1985 and went to work as a vice president of Dewitt & Co., a Houston consulting company. He was in charge of disseminating information on MTBE, a gasoline octane enhancer that was the world's fastest-growing petrochemical. While at Oxirane Corp., he had been in charge of marketing this product.

Bill traveled the world, giving lectures on the use of MTBE in the world's gasoline pool. He finally retired after 10 years in 1995, and he and Sue moved to Charlottesville, Virginia. Sue's health began to fail, and she wanted to return to her home area, Cape Girardeau. They moved to Cape Girardeau in 2002, and Sue passed away in 2008.

In 2011, Bill married the former Marta Green of Cape Girardeau, who survives him. Bill's daughter and her husband, Jim Collet, reside in Dallas, along with their two sons, Will and Jack Collet. Bill's son, Tyson Ludlow, and his partner, Tammy Gwaltney, and her daughter, Alex, reside in Herrin, Illinois. He also is survived by a stepson, Jason Green, and wife Jennifer, along with their two children, Max and Claire Green. He also is survived by his beloved poker club.

Bill's brother, Tom, preceded him in death in 1993.

A memorial service will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at Ford and Sons Mount Auburn Funeral Home, with the Rev. David Conley officiating.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Centenary United Methodist Church, 300 N. Ellis St., Cape Girardeau, MO 63701.

Online condolences may be made at www.fordandsonsfuneralhome.com.