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CENTERVILLE — Bill Elam Sr., founder of Bill’s Donut Shop, died Monday, Aug. 16. The Washington Twp. resident was 75.
Bill’s Donut Shop, a family-run business at 268 N. Main St., closed at 3 p.m. Tuesday and will reopen at 3 p.m. Sunday.
Mr. Elam started the shop with his wife, Faye, in 1960 in downtown Dayton. It moved multiple times before settling at its current location in 1979.
In 1995, Bill and Faye Elam sold the business to two of their children, Lisa Elam-Tucker and Jim Elam. They have another son, Bill Elam Jr., four grandchildren, one great-granddaughter and two stepgrandsons.
Elam-Tucker said her father suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and had been at Hospice of Dayton for the last two-and-a-half weeks.
“I can’t say enough about that organization,” Elam-Tucker said of Hospice.
In lieu of flowers, the family asked that donations be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, Hospice of Dayton or Mr. Elam’s charity of choice, A Special Wish Foundation.
Elam-Tucker said her parents granted the first wish of A Special Wish Foundation, which funds the requests of children or teenagers with life-threatening disorders, as well as the 500th wish and the 1,000th wish.
“On TV one night, they ran a story about a little boy who was terminally ill and wanted to go to Florida,” Elam-Tucker said about how her parents got involved. “The two of them decided that night that they would send that little boy to Florida.”
Ilene Schnabel, executive director of A Special Wish, said the Elams paid $1,500 to send that 8-year-old boy to Disney World in 1983.
Since then, the family has kept a donation box for the charity on the counter at the shop .
“The Elam family and Bill’s Donut Shop have raised over $30,000 to help other children have their special wishes,” Schnabel said.
“Bill was a very generous, kind and giving man who loved children,” she added. “And his children are the same. Lisa and Jim, the next generation at Bill’s, help us in any way that they can. He certainly has passed on that legacy.”
Elam-Tucker said she thinks her father will be missed terribly — “not only by his family, but by his friends. He was in business for 50 years; that’s a lot of friendships.”
Longtime pal Bill Howe said Mr. Elam had accomplished a great deal and meant a great deal to his friends and family.
“Friends like him are rare,” Howe said. “He was just a great guy.”
There will be a visitation for Mr. Elam from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday and funeral services at 9 a.m. Friday, both at Schlientz and Moore Funeral Home, 820 Miamisburg-Centerville Road. Burial will be at Centerville Cemetery.
After the burial, there will be a gathering of friends at Bill’s Donut Shop.
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