Stephen Herron lost his eyesight when someone hit him in the eye with a beer bottle as he tried to break up a bar fight during a concert.

It wasn’t until after the adjunct art instructor lost his eyesight that he enrolled in classes at USI. Despite the loss, he was still able to make ceramic barns – a hobby he loved.

He died at age 62 at his home on Thanksgiving.

Angela Hilgenhold, 42, met her father for the first time on Thanksgiving Day 18 years ago.

Herron lived in Phoenix and Texas while Hilgenhold grew up with her mother and stepfather. But Herron wanted to meet Hilgenhold.

“I never really felt like part of me was missing, but when we met, I felt like I met another half of me I didn’t know existed,” Hilgenhold said.

They shared an interest in art and music, she said.

She and Herron went on several road trips. They drove to Wisconsin for Hilgenhold’s cousin’s graduation.

“We jammed to Dave Matthews the whole way,” she said.

Hilgenhold thought it was really cool that both of them, from different generations, loved the same music.

They both enjoyed jazz, which led them to a jazz festival in New Orleans. They met in the city and did all of the traditional New Orleans things, like eat beignets.

“The funny thing about that was everyone thought we were a couple,” Hilgenhold said.

Herron enjoyed listening to music, as well as playing it. He played the guitar and the harmonica.

Hilgenhold loved listening to her father play music. He would bring his guitar to her house and play.

On Christmas of 2012, Herron bought Ava and Aaron, his grandchildren, guitars and taught them how to play – Hilgenhold’s favorite memory of him.

Sometimes Herron would go to Ava’s basketball games, Hilgenhold said.

“My dad was such a free spirit,” Hilgenhold said. “I let him come in and out of my life as he wanted.”

They spent quality time together, even though it was not enough, she said.

“I loved him for what he was,” Hilgenhold said. “I didn’t expect him to be what he wasn’t.”

Herron was someone people went to for advice.

“He was like everybody’s uncle,” Hilgenhold said.

Herron was on dialysis for years due to complications from Goodpasture Syndrome.

The hospital finally approved for Herron to get a kidney transplant from Hilgenhold, but the timing for the transplant didn’t work out, Hilgenhold said.

“Sometimes there’s a greater plan and that just wasn’t it,” she said.

Herron had an impact on the people around him, especially those in the art department. His specialty was ceramics.

He met Deborah Ball, adjunct ceramics and art instructor, when she was an undergraduate 10 years ago. They became friends and colleagues.

“He was a great musician and a great artist,” Ball said. “He was always smiling.”

Herron came to USI as an undergraduate in 1978 and was one of Lenny Dowey’s first art students.

“I taught him about life – ceramics were included in that,” Dowey said.

He was a good student and he was wild and crazy, he said.

After Herron got his master’s degree in art, he taught at a high school in Texas.

He moved back to Evansville to take care of his mother, so USI hired him as an adjunct instructor because they knew he could teach, Dowey said.

“He was a well-known blues harmonica player,” he said.

He would get on stage and play the harmonica during intermissions of bands at the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts conferences, Dowey said.

Dowey gave Herron the nickname Blind Lemon Jello after a famous musician and because he was blind in one eye.

“Blind Lemon Jello stuck,” Dowey said. “He loved it.”