Bill Haley has been retired since 2020, but just might be the busiest man in Soddy Daisy. Bill worked in the Advertising Art Department of the Chattanooga News-Free Press (now the Times-Free Press) before moving to the Tennessee Aquarium, where he served as the Education Outreach Coordinator for 28 years, taking animals on educational visits to schools within a 125-mile radius of the aquarium.
For most folks, a successful career and loving family would be enough to pass the time, but not for Bill Haley – Bill has a litany of self-professed “hobbies,” many of which he has avidly pursued since High School.
Painter, wildlife enthusiast, basket weaving, flower gardening, antique glass insulator expert, hawk watcher, butterfly counter… These are just a few of Bill’s “hobbies.” “Before I was retired,” Bill says, “I could only do my hobbies on weekends, now I can really dig into them.” One of the hobbies Bill has dug into is tracking the migration patterns of hawks and counting the population of butterflies. Bill has a profound love for nature and the outdoors, and has spent nearly 350 hours this year “spotting” hawks and butterflies. “Climate change is real,” he says “ and some hawks no longer migrate as far south as Tennessee, so late-season numbers have become much lower.”
Bill’s “hobby” for spotting birds, and his knowledge of them, is the skill that landed him his job at the Tennessee Aquarium. In 1992, Bill was working in advertising at the paper when he received a call from Christine Bock (now Hunt), who had recently taken a job as Lead Horticulturist at the still un-opened Tennessee Aquarium. A bird had flown into the glass, and Christine wanted to know if Bill could help. “I was able to identify the little warbler, and from there they encouraged me to volunteer, and eventually I moved from the paper to the aquarium,” Bill said of the experience. Bill worked at the Tennessee Aquarium from the opening in 1992 until his retirement in 2020.
Perhaps Bill Haley’s most serious and long-standing “hobby” is his collection of antique, glass insulators. Glass insulators were used to prevent the loss of current in telephone and electric lines before being replaced with more modern materials in the 1960’s. Bill started collecting them in High School along the train tracks in Soddy Daisy. “It’s the history of them,” Bill said when asked about why he is fascinated with glass insulators, “the history and the fact that they are just beautiful glass objects.”
Bill is one of thousands of collectors of these insulators in the country and is the current President of the Dixie Jewels Insulator Club. The range of materials used and variations in the glass specimens is astounding. Bill’s collection includes insulators made from porcelain, glass and even wood, and many of the pieces have beautiful imperfections in the glass that become apparent when illuminated by a flashlight. “I could just look at this one all day,” Bill said of a particularly beautiful piece (see below).
There are few people in Soddy Daisy that are enjoying their retirement as much as Bill Haley. Nearly every day is spent working on one of his “hobbies,” or spending time with family. Bill now lives in home that has been in his family for generations with his wife Candy. Their daughter Mindy is the owner of Mindy B’s deli on Georgia Ave. in Chattanooga. “I stay busy,” Bill said when asked about what he’s been doing since his retirement.