Newspaper Industry News

Ex-Daily Mail Sports Editor Dick Hudson dies at 100

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Dick Hudson, who wrote about sports for the Charleston Daily Mail for 36 years, died last Friday at 100 years old.

Hudson passed away at home in Shady Springs, Ga., surrounded by family.

Hudson’s Mountain State friends and former colleagues recalled him as a “gentlemen” and “sweetheart” who was “studious” and “scholarly” in his profession.

The Charleston native, who graduated from Charleston High School and attended West Virginia Wesleyan College, started at the Daily Mail on Jan. 5, 1935. He took over as the newspaper’s sports editor a year later, and became well-known for his daily “Warming Up” columns and an annual Christmas Day column dedicated to his only son, Terry.

“Dick represented the best of what was right about sports,” said Sam Hindman, a former publisher, executive editor and city editor at the Daily Mail.

Hudson covered high school sports, West Virginia University athletics and minor league baseball for parts of five decades.

“Dick was very much an institution at the Daily Mail,” Hindman said. “He and Shorty Hardman were, what you may call, a 1-2 punch in terms of a competitive era in newspapers in those days.”

Hudson teamed with Hardman, a former sports editor at the Charleston Gazette, to co-found the West Virginia Sports Writers Association Sports Hall of Fame and annual Victory Awards Dinner.

“I am sad,” Furfari said. “Dick Hudson was my best friend in the journalistic business. Dick Hudson was as fair-minded of a sports columnist as I’ve ever met in my life…

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