William S. Hendon was born in Oklahoma City in 1933. He grew up in Shawnee, Oklahoma where his father, Claude Hendon, practiced law and served several terms as county attorney and his mother, Dana Hendon, taught history in the Shawnee high school. Bill graduated from Kemper Military School and then went to the University of Oklahoma where he received a Ph.D. degree in economics in 1964.

In 1957, Bill married Mary Ann Thompson and by 1962 they had three children. Bill began his college teaching with four years at T.C.U., followed by three years at Texas Tech and then the next twenty-one years teaching economics and urban affairs at the University of Akron.

The family summers were spent at a cottage on the Lake of the Woods in Ontario.

Happily retired since 1989, Bill and his wife, Mary Ann, spend five months at the cottage, where their adult kid families visit each summer; the couple spends five months in Akron and two months on the Texas Gulf coast. Migration is a very pleasant thing.

Life began when the kids left home and the dog died.