David Gower Hill

David Gower Hill of Boulder passed away on May 26 after battling cancer for several years.  He was 83.

David was born January 3, 1935, in Lawrence, Kansas.  His family played an important role in the economic and political development of the state, including the founding of important businesses and a bank in Lawrence.  He attended the University of Kansas as a Summerfield Scholar and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1956.  He was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.  He entered the Marine Corps ROTC program while in college and served in the Marine Corps for three years after graduation, based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

David studied law at the University of Michigan, where he graduated in 1961.  He received a Henry M. Bates Memorial Scholarship, the school's highest honor.  He also received the Order of the Coif and was a member of the Board of Editors of the Law Review.  He began practicing law in Boulder in 1961, initially focusing on business law and estates.  He later added water law to his specializations and represented municipalities in the Denver area.  In 2001 he co-founded the firm Berg Hill Greenleaf and Ruscitti.  Dedicated to his clients, he also took pride in mentoring young attorneys.

David was an active member of the community and contributed extensive pro bono legal work.  He served five terms as Trustee of the First Presbyterian Church of Boulder, was a member of the Board of Directors of HospiceCare of Boulder and Broomfield Counties, and was a Director of Boulder Rotary and the Boulder Chamber of Commerce.  He was a member of the Board of Litigation of the Mountain States Legal Foundation and member of the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, where he was a volunteer lobbyist on sales tax issues.  As a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Tax Committee he lobbied on the reform of Subchapter S tax legislation, receiving the Lawyer Advocate of the Year Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration in 1982 for his activities.  He was recognized by the Mountain States Legal Foundation for his contribution to conservative legal causes and was inducted into the Order of the Water Buffalo by the Water Law Section of the Colorado Bar Association in 2016.

David considered family and friends, hunting, the law, and the Marine Corps to be the most important parts of his life.  He met his wife Jo Scholes Hill at the University of Kansas.  They wed in 1957 during a leave from the Marine Corps.  While Jo was a student in the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration he often took an overnight train from North Carolina to Massachusetts while listing New Haven, Connecticut as his destination because it was the maximum distance allowed from Camp Lejeune on a weekend furlough.  In addition to Jo he is survived by his daughter, Laurie Hill Niewoehner of Lafayette, CO; his son Christopher, of New York, NY; his grandchildren Megan, Ruthann, and Daniel Niewoehner; and his brothers Stephen and Justin Jr. of Lawrence, KS.  A third brother, Alan, died in 2004.  He was an avid hunter of upland game and waterfowl and raised fourteen English setters during his lifetime.  A passionate skier and the leader of numerous outdoor adventures in the western states, Canada, and Alaska, he logged nearly two million vertical feet heliskiing in British Columbia.

There will be a memorial service with military honors at First Presbyterian Church of Boulder on June 10 at 2:00 p.m., followed by a reception.