Richard G. Hutcheson Jr.
Navy chaplain, pastor
Richard G. Hutcheson Jr., Navy chaplain, pastor
Richard G. Hutcheson Jr., 90, a Navy chaplain who retired as a rear admiral and then served five years as senior pastor of the Vienna Presbyterian Church, died Jan. 15 at Fairfax Nursing Center. He had pneumonia, said his son Rick Hutcheson.
Adm. Hutcheson served 28 years in the Navy Chaplain Corps, retiring in 1974. His last Navy assignment was as fleet chaplain for the Atlantic Fleet. On retiring from the Navy, he was pastor at a church in Atlanta before settling in the Washington area in 1981 as senior pastor at Vienna Presbyterian Church. He retired in 1986 and was a Vienna resident.
Richard Gordon Hutcheson Jr. was born in Wakefield, Va. He graduated from Emory and Henry College in Emory, Va., in 1942 and from Yale Divinity School in 1945. He did additional study at Union Theological Seminary in New York. In 1971, he received a doctorate in education from American University.
His Navy career included service with the 1st Marine Division in Korea during the Korean War and several postings in Washington, including as officer in charge of the Navy’s chaplain school and director of the Navy’s Chaplain Corps planning group. His decorations included the Navy Commendation Medal and Legion of Merit.
Adm. Hutcheson was an authority on the relationship between churches and the military. His books included “The Churches and the Chaplaincy” (1975), “Wheel Within the Wheel” (1979), “Mainline Churches and the Evangelicals” (1981) and “God in the White House” (1988). He also wrote a memoir of his Navy service, “Chaplain at Sea” (1999).
His first wife, the former Esther Helen Parkey, whom he married in 1945, died in 1974.
Survivors include his wife of 34 years, Ann Rivers Thompson Hutcheson of Vienna; three children from his first marriage, Richard G. “Rick” Hutcheson III of Palm Springs, Calif., William Hutcheson and Elizabeth Parkey Hutcheson, both of Fairfax County; a stepdaughter, Susan Thompson of Vienna; a brother; and five grandchildren.
— Bart Barnes
