James Robert Hillis, 84, of Memphis, Tennessee, and formerly of Olney, died Friday, November 28, 2014, at a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.  Funeral services at Christ United Met hodist Church, Memphis, Tennessee. Interment with military honors in Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee.

Mr. Hillis was born in 1930 in Olney, the son of Harry Jethro and Alma Nell Seymour Hillis. He married Suzanne Harms in 1957 in Olney.

Mr. Hillis attended Cherry Street School and Central School in Olney and graduated from Olney Township High School in 1948. Following high school, he worked as a brakeman for Illinois Central Railroad for a short time before attending Eastern Illinois University in Charleston for one year. He then attended Indiana University, graduating in 1957 with a Bachelor of Science and Business degree. He also attended Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers University. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.

For 28 years, he was an employee of the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. as a national bank examiner. Following retirement, he worked for 10 more years as a bank consultant.

Mr. Hillis is survived by his wife, Suzanne Hillis; three children, Dana (Steven) Lott, of Louisville, Kentucky, Gretchen Rogers, of Norfolk, Virginia, and Richard (Kristen) Hillis, of Memphis, Tennessee; six grandchildren; and one brother, Harry Hillis Jr., of Olney.

He was preceded in death by his parents and two sisters, Marie Hillis and Wilma Weber.

Published in Olney Daily Mail (IL) - December 1, 2014