The Dr. Marshall E. Bishop Memorial Scholarship’s endowment for math and science scholarships at Southwestern Michigan College doubled recently to $20,000, thanks in part to a treasure hunter known as Bunky.

Bunky, Bishop’s childhood nickname, lives on at Bunky’s A Bit of Everything, which opened in April inside Schoolcraft Antique Mall.

His widow, Jackie, SMC’s first computer programming instructor, is learning retail while gradually rehoming his many collections.

Mrs. Bishop also directed Indiana University South Bend’s computer center and worked for the Edward Lowe Foundation.

Though she grew up in Battle Creek and lives in Portage, the couple considered Dowagiac home after raising their two children here during 26 years on Twin Lakes Road and at Magician Lake.

Bishop, the college’s sixth president, passed June 4, 2023, at 80. Riverside Cemetery is his final resting place.

He came to SMC in 1975 to teach chemistry, became dean of arts and science in 1985 and was promoted to vice president of instruction in 1987.

Bishop became president in 1998 upon the retirement of David C. Briegel and served until 2001 when Dr. David M. Mathews succeeded him.

Bishop did not stay retired long, becoming president of Adirondack Community College in Queensbury, N.Y., until June 2007.

In 2014, Bishop attended SMC’s 50^th-anniversary celebration. Jackie attended Founders Day Nov. 1 for SMC’s 60^th anniversary, taking in two basketball victories with Camille Briegel and Linda Campbell.

The genial 6-foot-7 educator always dressed up for Halloween and as the Roadrunner mascot, initially a brown Big Bird.

In early 2000, at home on a Saturday, Bishop’s phone rang. It was Tony the Tiger on the other end of the line!

An avid collector of Kellogg’s memorabilia, his caller was Thurl Ravenscroft, who had been telling how Grrrrreat! Frosted Flakes are since 1952.

Ravenscroft received an autograph request from Bishop and was amazed a college president wanted Tony the Tiger’s signature. He not only sent an autographed photo and baseball, he placed the call from his California home.

“My Kellogg’s collection already contains several Tony the Tiger and Frosted Flakes items, but this is the first time I’ve received a phone call from a talking tiger,” Bishop said. “I have to admit I was a little speechless.”

Mr. Ravenscroft, who died in May 2005, also sang the theme song (“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”) in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

At the turn of the century, SMC had a Speakers’ Bureau. Bishop logged close to 200 presentations, including visually entertaining chemistry experiments.

Besides Kellogg’s, Dr. Bishop’s topics included chance and lucky accidents, Burma-Shave (the shaving cream advertised on sequential roadside signs), ice harvesting, the Erie Canal, the Michigan Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal and a general store he recreated in his basement.

Bishop had a strong interest in history and began researching the Erie Canal because he grew up near it. Other topics developed from work with the SMC Museum.

He was often scheduled 18 months in advance and presented as far away as Jackson, Hillsdale, Kalamazoo and Battle Creek.

Driven by curiosity, Bishop scoured antique malls and eBay for unique and hard-to-find items which interested him. That also included Round Oak stoves, ice-harvesting equipment, cow anchors, sports memorabilia (especially Detroit teams), Depression glass, autographs, tobacco tins and Beech-Nut. Whatever he acquired, he learned its history.

Family vacations revolved around antique stores and cemeteries, where Jackie pursued genealogy. On one trip to Connecticut, the couple, who met at an Oakland University basketball game, made a contest out of it.

“After we moved to New York, his collecting changed,” Jackie said. “He got interested in collecting porcelain advertising signs for gasoline and sodas. It took three trips for the buyer to get them all.”

Bishop was born in Amsterdam, N.Y., on Aug. 3, 1942. When his family moved to Michigan, he graduated from Pontiac Northern High School in 1960 and from Oakland University with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1964. He also earned a master’s degree in chemistry from Oakland in 1967.

In 2003, Oakland’s Chemistry Department awarded Bishop its Distinguished Alumni Award.

His career began at General Motors’ Pontiac Motor Division as an experimental chemist.

On July 13, 1968, Bishop married Jacqueline Winter in Marshall. Following Jackie’s graduation from Oakland, they moved to Albany, N.Y., where Marshall completed his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry.

When they moved back to Michigan and Bishop secured a fulltime SMC faculty position, he developed the chemical technology program, from which graduates joined Upjohn (now Pfizer), Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant or obtained advanced degrees.

The Bishops had two children, Eric, who became a chemist with Pfizer and lives in Maine, and Kathy who lives in the Kalamazoo area. The family now has five grandchildren.