In Memory

Ben H. Hutchinson (Principal)

Ben H. Hutchinson (Principal)



 
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12/22/11 09:58 PM #1    

Don Lewis (1968)

A striking presence at pep rallies. Always coiled to put the bite on any monkey businessssssssss.


02/06/12 06:24 PM #2    

Valerie Ruehmann (Kite) (1957)

He encouraged activities at school and treated people fairly.

02/09/12 05:49 PM #3    

Joseph Henry Farquharson (1964)

Mr. Hutchinson was a no non-sense kind of guy whom I admired. I’ll never forget him.


05/29/17 02:24 PM #4    

Walter T (Tommy) Fields (1960)

Great person! Gave me an opportunity of life time to teach/coach at Lakeshore inCP. He was Director of Teacher Personnel in Fulton Co.I worked in his office as a Senior during my study hall class. He was very professional and personal to me.

04/17/18 04:25 PM #5    

Dan Bruce (1960)

My impression of Ben Hutchinson was formulated long before I entered CPHS. For several years, I had heard him called "Snake," a name given by a group of older boys, older than me that is, because of his propensity to sneak around the hallways listening through the doors of classrooms, snake-like it was said. I don't know how far back that moniker originated, but it seemed to have acquired a rather thick coat of schoolboy patina by the time I heard it used for the first time. I didn't really encounter him as Principle, and was never called to his office, until the first week of my senior year in the autumn of 1959, when I was beginning my term as Student Council/Student Body president. All summer long I had been preparing a new Constitution to govern council operations, with ideas based on a number of books I had read about the organization and activities of successful high-school councils around the nation. I came into that year hoping to make the CPHS Student Council the most effective and educational extra-curricular activity in the school, a training ground for fostering good citizenship. Right away I called the first meeting of the council to consider and approve the new Constitution. It set out an agenda for getting students involved in the governance of all extra-curricular activities at CPHS, including sports (which I quickly learned was the school's extra-curricular sacred cow where such things as passing grades were unimportant). What I wanted to do was essentially a forerunner and mini-version of the student involvement and activism that broke out in the late 1960s. Little did I know that Snake was listening (and seething as it turned out) to that council meeting using the room's PA system, which I found out later had recently been equipped with microphones that could hear what was going on in classrooms. Next thing I know I was called to the Principle's office. Snake and Mr. Felder, the council's feckless faculty advisor, were ready to nail me to the wall for being so bold as to try to make student government a functioning reality. Snake chewed me out and threatened to expell me, but I was quick thinking. I asked if I could call my lawyer. That seemed to catch the two of them offguard and Snake quickly changed his tune and backed down. I left that meeting thinking I had won a moral victory, but soon realized that the "powers that be" were not called that for nothing. Snake made the remainder of my final year at CPHS difficult, and actively worked against letting the council have any meaningful student input into the way the administration handled extra-curricular activities. One humorous event happened in the midst of the estrangement between the two of us. The Optimists Club of Atlanta selected me as Student of the Month, and invited Snake and me to attend a luncheon at the Piedmont Driving Club to receive my award. Before giving me my certificate, the club president asked Snake to sing my praises for the group, and he spent the next ten minutes almost choking on his words, at least that was how I saw it. I have to admit that it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud at the irony. On the way back to College Park, he gritted his teeth and said not a word to me. So, looking back, I have mixed feelings about Ben Hutchinson. I'm sure he was a good administrator, but I also remember him as a somewhat humorless authoritarian. I left school thinking of him as an adversary rather than as an educator, although I guess I did get a kind of education in dealing with his heavy-handedness that final year at CPHS. Being a bureaucrat at the county school board level was probably a better fit for him than being a high-school Principle. 


04/29/19 05:26 PM #6    

Nancy Jeanne Smith (Wiltsee) (1961)

Mr. Benjamin H. Hutchinson, Sr., age 97, of Tucker, formerly of Hapeville and East Point, died Wednesday evening June 1, 2005. 

A native of Paulding County and a 1929 graduate of Emory University, he was an educator for 44 years and as such he touched the lives of untold numbers of students. He taught at Fitzgerald North Fulton and Fulton High Schools, was Principal of College Park High School from 1949 thru 1965 and was Administrator of Fulton County School System Personnel. He was a Master Mason for almost 75 years and a member of Hapeville Lodge #590 F&AM. 

He was a member of The Hapeville United Methodist Church for 45 years before moving his membership to Embry Hills United Methodist Church, where Funeral Services will be Saturday, 1:00 PM, with Rev. Mark Westmoreland, and Rev. Fred Shelnutt, officiating. Interment, Westview Cemetery. 

Surviving are his children, Sylvia B. Bell, Tucker; and Benjamin H. Hutchinson, Jr. Davidsonville, MD; five grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren. 

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to either, Embry Hills or Hapeville United Methodist Church, The family will receive friends Friday 5-8 PM at Lowndes & McLane Funeral Home, Tucker. Published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on June 3, 2005

 
 

04/29/19 06:39 PM #7    

Ward Lawton (1954)

He help us get new uniforms for the football team and gave us good support.   RIP    Ward Lawton  "54


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