Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Garven F. HudginsJournalist, Executive
Garven F. Hudgins, 84, a former Associated Press journalist who later became an executive for an education association, died June 23 at Manor Care nursing home in Potomac. He had dementia.
Mr. Hudgins, who worked briefly as a police reporter for the Philadelphia Bulletin, joined AP Newsfeatures in New York in 1951. Six years later, he joined the AP foreign staff and worked in Paris and London until 1960, when he was assigned to Istanbul as bureau chief. His arrival coincided with a military coup d'état. His bureau oversaw news from Cyprus and Israel, so Mr. Hudgins covered the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.
He rejoined the AP Newsfeatures staff in New York in 1962, went back to Paris in 1964 and became Cairo bureau chief in 1965. Mr. Hudgins covered the 1967 Arab-Israeli war from Cairo until he was incarcerated in a hotel and expelled from Egypt by ship with most of the rest of the Western press corps.
Mr. Hudgins returned to the United States and was assigned to Washington as AP's education writer, a job he held until he retired from the news agency in 1971.
His second career was as director of the office of institutional research for the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. By the time he retired from that organization in 1989, he was special assistant to the president for university relations.
Mr. Hudgins was born in Portsmouth, Va., and served in the Army Air Forces as an air crew radio operator during World War II in the Pacific. He graduated from Yale University after the war.
He was a member of the Popham Seminar, a gathering of journalists who covered the civil rights movement. His interests included Civil War history and classical music. He was a resident of Potomac for 40 years.
His wife of 57 years, Jane Moore Hudgins, died in 2005.
Survivors include two sons, Garven Hudgins of Potomac and Robert Hudgins of Centreville, Md.; three grandchildren; and twin great-granddaughters.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Henry F. ConnorCIA, County Employee
Henry F. Connor, 82, who worked for the CIA and later for the Fairfax County government, died June 13 of pneumonia and an infection at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington. He had lived in McLean since 1958.
Mr. Connor worked on several overseas assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, including in Taiwan and Germany, and also at the CIA's Langley headquarters. He retired in the 1970s after about 25 years.
He spent the next 20 years working in the financial field with Fairfax County until the 1990s.
Mr. Connor was born in Troy, N.Y. He enlisted in the Navy during World War II and served in Saigon. After the war, he received a bachelor's degree in finance from American University.
He lived in the Washington area for more than 60 years, including in Arlington and the District.
He was a member of Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in McLean. He also belonged to the American Legion Post in McLean and was active in the Masons and the Shriners.
His hobbies included playing golf and traveling.
Survivors include his wife of 55 years, Christel Connor of McLean; a daughter, Susan K. Connor of Weston, Fla.; four sisters; a brother; and a grandson.
-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb
Thomas O. MeyerPhysicist
Thomas Oliver Meyer, 89, a physicist who worked in aerospace engineering, died of prostate cancer June 13 at his home in Charlottesville.
Mr. Meyer, a former resident of Rockville, started working as an engineer with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington during World War II, where he was a principal in rebuilding and shrinking German jet engines, which led to many advances in aviation and rockets.
He left the Naval lab in 1951 to work at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, then in Silver Spring, for five years, helping to design and launch rockets into space. He transferred to the General Electric Air and Space program in Valley Forge, Pa., in 1956, where he designed and developed missile systems logistics until 1972.
Mr. Meyer continued to work in physics and aerospace engineering at Vitro Laboratories in Wheaton from 1973 to 1980 and then with EG&G in Rockville until he retired in 1994.
A native of Penniman, Va., Mr. Meyer graduated from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa. where he also received a master's degree in physics in 1948.
In 1998, Mr. Meyer and his wife, whom he met while he was a teaching assistant at Bucknell, moved to Charlottesville.
He enjoyed music and sang baritone, bass and tenor in his church choirs, although his true love was singing in barbershop quartets and choruses. He was a member of several barbershop groups: the Montgomery Counts and the Knights of the Round Table in Maryland (the latter specialized in singing valentines) as well as the Mainliners in Pennsylvania. He and his wife also enjoyed square dancing and belonged to several groups.
Survivors include his wife, Marion Meyer of Charlottesville; five daughters, Peggy Kinner of Syracuse, N.Y., Katharine Rankin of Fayetteville, N.C., Mary Meyer of Bethesda, Naomi Aitkin of Charlottesville and Ruth Meyer of Charlottesville; eight grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
-- Patricia Sullivan