Palestine High School Alumni Association

07 / 09 / 1914  –  01 / 30 / 1991

Memorial services for Freddie Kolstad Hopgood, 76, of Billings, Montana and formerly of Palestine, will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church.  A simultaneous memorial will take place in Billings St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.  The body has been cremated.  Mrs. Hopgood died Monday in Billings.  She was born July 9, 1914, in Palestine to Luckett and Carrie Irby Kolstad, Sr.

Mrs. Hopgood graduated from Palestine High School in 1931 and in 1936 she earned her journalism degree from Louisiana State University where she was a member of Theta Sigma Phi, the honorary society for women in journalism.  She worked for various newspapers in Texas, Louisiana and North Dakota before moving to Billings in 1962.  She wrote features and book reviews for The Billings Gazette during the 1960’s.

A lifelong Episcopalian, Mrs. Hopgood taught Sunday School for 12 years at St. Stephen’s Church  and was a member and officer in various women’s groups at the church and worked in the church’s hospital ministry.  She was a former member of the YMCA Board of Directors and a docent at the Yellowstone Art Center.

She married Ted Hopgood in 1938 in Shreveport, LA and the couple lived in St. Louis, Belleville, and Chester, IL and Williston, ND before they moved to Billings.  Mrs.Hopgood was preceded in death by her husband in 1987.

She is survived by a daughter, Sarah Hopgood Holte of Billings; sons, Brig. Gen. Ted Hopgood, Jr. of Alexandria, VA and Tom Hopgood of Helena, MT; sister, Sarah Kolstad Glass of Palestine; brothers, Luckett Kolstad, Jr. of Palestine and Rev. T.I. Kolstad of Coronado, CA; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.