William A. Hill, 1908

Our brothers careers have been productive, constructive, spirited, and prosaic. They displayed impressive skills, talents, and abilities They were, and we continue to be, a beautiful and lively expression of our enduring fraternal beliefs, and that underlying harmony is far-reaching in expectation for all brothers’, undergraduate and graduate. It is the core of what our fraternal founders asserted in 1848 and 1874 and 1899: to live active, commendable, and responsible lives, and to build up community. Clearly and compellingly, they added, and continue to add, positive value at the local, state, national, global, and fraternal level because they engaged life fully and responsibly. In short, they were authoritative pillars throughout life. They were-are exemplary in their citizenship, character, and their sense of dutiful responsibility, and, in many instances, they were leading voices in their career fields. They prove that success of any kind does not occur by luck or accident, and we remember them because they continue to provide that message for our time. Their spirit permeates our brotherhood, and it always will. 

We have long been, from one generation to the next, proud to be Omega Mu Fijis. We continue to cherish our fraternal friendships, our shared memories, and our evolving, forward-focused history at the University of Maine. These things, above and beyond everything else, are the underlying rooted connections that make us proud to be Omega Mu Fijis. Why, after all, should we believe otherwise? We have always exhibited a can-do fraternal spirit since 1874. And, to be sure, all present and future generations of Omega Mu Fijis will continue to do the same, with fraternal enthusiasm and commitment. As a brotherhood, we always see the path behind us and the way forward with equal clarity, and our future remains bright at 79 College Avenue because we fearlessly move forward, always guided by sound fraternal principles, and because of that we are an exceptional brotherhood because we remain committed and hardworking to assure that our Omega Mu brotherhood will continue to be the jewel at the University of Maine. Perge.

Omega Mu Portrait
William A. Hill,
1908

Omega Mu Years

CLARINETS
W. A. HILL

Artist

William A. Hill is a proud legacy in our Omega Mu brotherhood. Although he studied engineering at the University of Maine, he shaped a beautiful life as an impressionist painter who understood that life-long success, whether in engineering or art, is a labor of love, and he did so with persevering affection. As an artist, William A. Hill was greatly influenced by Lester Stevens, an exceptional impressionistic style painter from Rockport, Massachusetts. Like Stevens, William A. Hill was best-known as a landscape and seascape painter, creating quiet, motionless, even contemplative, scenes of towns, bridges, and churches. His pantings are filled with colour, the interplay of light and shadow, an enveloping atmospheric feel of seasons, and a melancholy, considered silence.

The first painting below is reminiscent of Monet's sequential Grainstack painting series, and the first bridge has an ever-so subtle feel of Cezanne, while the last bridge distills some of the artistic spirit of Monet, as well as several Van Gogh brushstroke flashes. Although William A. Hill was not a free-spirited, radically innovative painter seeking his own expressive style, he did incorporate the very best ideas of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Taken altogether, in subject and artistic form, William A. Hill had an artistic taste for painting simple, beautiful paintings of New England, uncrowded by human emotion, that have enriched the lives of many people. Although he was not remotely famous as an artist, with his art being derivative of Cezanne and Monet, William A. Hill was a capable and confident artist. And, lastly, and most importantly, he lived a life meaning and purpose as an artist, and he did so with determined, expressive integrity, our enduring fraternal expression since 1874.

And, even now, in the same degree, we continue to hold fast to that clear and distinct fraternal art of creating and sustaining life-long meaning and purpose in our Omega Mu brotherhood, ever and always. Our Omega Mu brotherhood continues to thrive. And, whatever else that there may be in a given life, our Omega Mu fraternal life, as undergraduate and graduate brothers, is a gift, a finely honed generational gift, still, 147 years on, and that is not an inconsequential thing in the span of life. That is our constant human principle, and there is no way to overstate its life-long human value. Reasonably and fraternally stated, that is the best art. Perge. 

​Lester Stevens

William A. Hill's
Paintings

“What if the space be long and wide,
That parts us from our brother’s side
A soul-joined chain unites our band,
And memory links us hand in hand.
(Phi Gamma Delta fraternity song)

Fraternally,
Chip Chapman, ’82
​Perge