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Inducted 1983   Growing
up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Willis attended Green Bay West High School
and played four years of football and two years of golf.
He entered Lake Forest College in 1938 and earned his football numerals his freshman year. During his last three years Willis started every game as an offensive and defensive lineman. A member of Digamma Alpha Upsilon, he was active in the Stentor, Tusitala, the Lettermen's Club and the Athletic Board. Following graduation in 1942, Willis was invited for a tryout with the Detroit Lions professional football team, but World War II intervened. It was during his three-year tour of duty in the U.S. Marine Corps that he married Jean Alice Bolger '45. Honorably discharged in 1945, Willis, a business administration major, worked in the insurance business for thirty-one years, retiring as President of the California Insurance Company. An active golfer (4 handicap) and an avid bird hunter, Willis suffered an unfortunate accident two years after retiring, leaving him confined to a wheelchair. Never dispirited, he continued to shoot skeet regularly for many years.
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