After 4+ years of deplorable studenthood at IU, majoring in art and comp lit, I then spent 40 years in branding/marketing communications: wrote ads, created campaigns, worked as a Mad Man in ad agencies in Indianapolis, New York and St. Louis for companies including Lancia/Fiat, Pirelli and Budweiser brands. I was active in motorsports as a racing driver, publicist and adman. After "retirement" from corporate life in 2006, I began painting, with some surprising success. Went to to work as director of a small community museum and there created an art school, where I gave lessons until 2013. Now I paint for collectors and pleasure. My wife and I met at IU, both of us working for the Daily Student. We both worked for newspapers and in ad agencies in NYC, later started our own in Indianapolis. In 2013 I was named a "Distinguished Hoosier" by Governor Mitch Daniels. Today my wife is a 3rd term county commissioner and we live on her family farm near eastern Indiana. Our two daughters happily reside in Indianapolis- one owns a winery with her husband-- the Easley Winery, bottling prize cabs and popular Reggae labels-- and the other is a pr manager at Cummins; our recently retired Marine son resides with his Marine wife in Tampa, where he has begun a new career as a supervising engineer with a construction company.

I was an indifferent student at Riley, and also at IU, easily distracted, wanting only to be involved in art, drawing when I should have been listening. I'm sure my teachers and parents despaired that I would come to a bad end. And arguably I did, spending years working in the ad business, creating messages and strategies that tried to bend people to my wishes. I wrote magazine ads, and radio and tv spots for foreign cars and pay toilets, for German beer and Italian tires; for guys running for for US Senator and guys running for local coroner. It was all crap. Mostly.

Lincoln

Mary Jane (Fred) Hipshear