Steve Leon Hightshoe of Hutsonville, IL, passed away on Saturday, June 13, 2026, at Deaconess Memorial Medical Center in Jasper, IN. He was 80 years old, and he had lived all of them as his own man.
He was born on September 14, 1945, in Robinson, IL, the son of Russel Leroy & Imo Jeanne (Matheney) Hightshoe. He grew up in the Robinson and Trimble areas and graduated from Robinson High School in 1963. Right out of school, he went to work at Velsicol in Marshall, IL, and lived in Marshall during his time there.
He eventually found his way to the Marathon refinery in Robinson, and that move brought him to Hutsonville, where the Wabash River was waiting for him. He took to it like he’d been on the water his whole life. Steve became a net fisherman, and a good one. This colorful river rat once landed a haul big enough to earn a full-page write-up in the Robinson Daily News. He turned the river into a living, too, opening a fish market and a bait shop and repairing outboard motors out of his home. The man couldn’t help but stay busy. In fact, he never missed a single day of work at the refinery, and Marathon recognized him with an award for his dependability before he retired as a shift foreman at the age of 54.
But Steve played every bit as hard as he worked. When he moved out to a farm in Trimble, he started collecting animals the way some people collect hobbies. He nursed a young skunk whose mother had been hit by a car and tried to get it deodorized, but the vet wouldn’t touch it, so Steve had to turn it loose back into the wild. He took in a possum with a broken leg. He raised a raccoon. He kept ostriches and longhorn cattle. If it was odd enough to turn heads, Steve probably had one.
But the animals that truly had his heart were his horses. He got into riding when he moved to the farm in the 1980s, and before long, he oversaw trail rides in Eminence, MO, organizing trips and leading riders through the Ozarks for years. On more than one occasion, he rode his horse straight into a bar, which got him thrown right back out! That was Steve. Fun-loving, always up for a good time, and hardly ever seen without a cowboy hat on his head.
He was wonderful with kids, too. When his own were growing up, if he looked out and saw snow falling, he would wake them in the middle of the night so they could all go make snow angels together. Everything he did, he did at one hundred percent, whether it was working or playing or surprising his children with snow at two in the morning. He moved from one hobby to the next—outdoors most of the time—and in his last few years, his grandchildren became the center of it all and the great joy of his life.
Eventually, the farm became more than he could manage, and he moved back to Hutsonville, where he lived until his passing. Steve Hightshoe was his own person, through and through. There wasn’t another one like him, and anyone who knew him would tell you the same.
He is survived by his children, Kevin Leon Hightshoe, Kip Douglas Hightshoe, and Melissa Lea Miller; his stepdaughter, Aspen Dawn Skidmore; his special friend, Valeria Elmore, who cared for him in his last years; as well as several beloved grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents; his sister, Jeanette McMahan; his daughter, Barbara Hightshoe; and his special friend, Lisa Marie Skidmore.
It was Steve’s wish to be cremated, and a graveside service will be held at Hutsonville Cemetery at a later date. The Goodwine Funeral Home in Robinson is assisting the family with arrangements.
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