Richard Hilt Obituary

Hilt
Richard "Dick" Leighton
Hilt
April 3, 1936
October 31, 2023

Dick died peacefully on October 31 in Colorado Springs. He was born in Detroit, Ml, on April 3, 1936 to George and Marian Hilt. He grew up in Lake Worth, FL. He went to Oberlin College in Ohio for his bachelor's degree, and then to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for his Ph. D. in physics, where he met his wife Sandra whom he married in 1965. He spent 55 years teaching physics at Colorado College (1964 — 2019). He enjoyed several sabbatical years in La Jolla, CA, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography pursuing his love of geophysics.
Dick played football in high school and enjoyed several other sports as an adult: tennis, handball, and skiing. Dick was an enthusiastic choral singer with various groups: a church choir when he was in high school. the Oberlin College choir, two choirs at Colorado College, the Colorado Springs Chorale, and various opera choruses with the Colorado Opera Festival.
He was a lover of classical music and theatre, and enjoyed performances of both in Colorado Springs and in Denver and in London on TheatreWorks theatre trips.
He and his wife Sandra were devoted to their cats. Over the course of their 58 years of marriage they had 12 cats (one to three at a time), most of whom came from animal shelters.
According to his wishes Dick's body has been donated to science via Science Care.