D-Dubs Bar and Grill is located at 10 W. Ninth St. in Eudora.

Bo Hopson didn’t refer to himself as a bouncer.

He wasn’t the “muscle-head, I’m going to beat you up” stereotype people think of with the word bouncer, and didn’t try to be, his father Scott Hopson said. Instead, when Bo described his occasional side job, he told people he worked security.

“Bo defused situations,” his father said.

Scott Hopson said he believes that’s what his son was attempting to do the night he was fatally shot outside D-Dubs Bar and Grill, at 10 W. Ninth St. in Eudora.

Bo Hopson, 32, was shot shortly after 1 a.m. June 24 outside D-Dubs, allegedly by a man who’d been asked to leave the bar. Hopson was flown to the University of Kansas Hospital, where he died the next day.

Danny W. Queen, 36, of Eudora stands charged with one count of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder — according to court documents, Queen fired the same handgun at two other men after shooting Bo, but the weapon misfired and the others were not hit.

Bo’s family has planned a celebration of his life for 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday at Fall Leaf Farms, in the Fall Leaf area north of Eudora.

Bo M. Hopson

Bo had worked security at D-Dubs on an occasional basis for several years, and also patronized the bar, his father said.

Since Bo died, his father said he’s received condolences from a lot of community members who told him they’d gotten late-night calls from Bo personally, saying “Hey, come down and get your kid,” or “Come down and get your loved one” after they’d had too much to drink.

Scott Hopson is a former mayor of Eudora, a small town just east of Lawrence and home to about 6,400 people, including numerous other Hopson family members. Scott said people know each other there, and look out for each other.

“That’s Eudora,” Scott said. “That’s why we live here. My son was a part of that.”

Through the years Bo also worked security at a couple places in Lawrence and in the Westport area of Kansas City, Mo., his father said.

“I worried about him at all those other places, but I never worried about him at our local bar here in Eudora,” his father said.

Scott Hopson said Bo didn’t know the man who’s now charged with his murder, but that he was trying to do the same thing for him he’d done for other D-Dubs patrons. Scott said Bo told the man he was concerned about him, suggested he lie down on a trailer outside the bar, told him he didn’t think he should drive and asked if there was somebody he could call.

“That man was a complete stranger,” Scott said. “Bo told that man, ‘Let me call somebody, let me get you some help,’ and that man shot and killed him.”

Bo did the security work to earn extra money on the side, his father said. His full-time job was working for Honey Creek Disposal Service.

“He was proud to tell you he was a trash man,” Scott said.

The job on the trash truck took Bo all over the area, his father said, and he enjoyed opportunities to work with customers. Scott said one woman who told him that when Bo spotted her struggling to get an item to the curb for large-item pickup, he jumped out of the truck and handled it for her.

Bo had been living with his father and stepmother in Eudora when he died. One of their long-term ongoing projects was restoring a 1968 El Camino together. Bo drove a 1977 Chevy Silverado pickup that he was working on restoring, too.

The day after Bo was shot, his father picked up the truck where it had been parked, at the carwash next to the bar. Some of the D-Dubs employees told him they want to team up with some other people they know who can do bodywork on the truck.

“They’re hoping to completely restore it like Bo wanted it,” Scott said.

Saturday’s celebration of life will have hundreds of red and yellow balloons, because Bo was a big Chiefs fan, Scott said. His father had season tickets more than 20 years and Bo had been going to games since he was about 5.

Bo loved video games, too. Bo had mentioned he wanted to be buried in his PlayStation 4, so that’s the plan once his body is cremated, his dad said. He’ll be buried in the Holy Family Catholic Cemetery next to a sister who died after being born prematurely, their father said.

Bo and his father also shared a love for Led Zeppelin. Bo had tattoos inspired by the band on his back; Scott had always given him a hard time about his tattoos, but got a similar one over his heart a couple days after Bo died.

Bo’s dad designed his headstone, which he said will have clouds at the top with some words from “Stairway to Heaven.”

“That was going to be what I always wanted on my headstone, but I wasn’t supposed to outlive Bo,” he said.

Bo was shot twice, once in the chest and once in his right bicep, his father said.

He underwent surgery to remove the bullet near his heart, then another surgery to remove the bullet in his arm and piece together a roughly 3-inch section of bone that had been shattered.

The morning Bo died, his father brought some things to the hospital that he’d asked for, including his phone and a tablet. There was an outpouring of support on Facebook, and Bo wanted to respond, his father said.

He seemed to have stabilized, and was mainly worried about whether his arm would heal enough for him to return to his job on the trash truck, his father said.

But his injuries were severe, and during another procedure later that day, his heart “just gave out,” his father said. Repeated attempts at CPR failed to revive him, and his father said he was in the room when Bo was pronounced dead.

Scott said it has been comforting to know that when Bo died, he knew he was loved.

“Tell your kids you love them every day,” he said.