William W. Ellis III ’73

Bill died July 14, 2025, in Gold River, Calif.

He attended Upper Arlington High School in Ohio, where he was a member of the swim team and the choir.

He followed his father, William W. Ellis Jr. ’46, to Princeton. Bill majored in politics and wrote his thesis under the guidance of Professor Stanley Kelley on “The Effects of the Political Orientation of Newspapers on Voting Behavior.” He had a three-year run of hosting late night shows on WPRB. He was both a member of Charter and one of the last members of Cannon, where he lived senior year. He was also a member of the freshman swim team, where classmate Chris Howard remembers Bill volunteering to be a diver, though that was not his skill. Each time there was a swim meet, Bill dived for Princeton, and though he came in last for his diving, he still accumulated points that helped Princeton in the swimming competitions.

After graduation Bill ran Elllis Computer Services, and then he became a systems analyst at Fiore Industries.

Bill wrote in the Nassau Herald that he enjoyed his time at Princeton as he found it to be an excellent place where one could begin to get some kind of understanding of oneself.

The Class of 1973 regrets the loss of yet another member of our Princeton family and sends its sympathies to Bill’s wife, Ruth.