ANNE ARRINGTON

ARRINGTON, Anne Hurt "Anna," 76, of Richmond, died November 12, 2010. She is survived by her husband of 31 years, Charles Breckenridge Arrington Jr. "Breck"; children, Jessica Hill Gould (Scott) of Santa Rosa, Calif., Joel Hurt Jones (Maria) of New York City, Anne Ridley Jones-Drennan (Dan) of Carpinteria, Calif.; grandchild, Robert Taylor Bilbao of San Francisco, Calif.; stepchildren, Elisabeth Arrington Cox (Richard) of Richmond, Anne Taylor Arrington (Daniel Schneider) of Missoula, Mont., Charles B. Arrington III (Luann) of Bay City, Mich., Robert Nash Arrington (Laraine) of Lawrenceville, Ga.; foster daughter, Lesleigh Gasbarre (Nick) of Agoura, Calif.; stepgrandchildren, Mary Taylor Walsh of Brunswick, Maine, Elisabeth Anne Arrington of Bay City, Mich., Sophia May Arrington and John Charles Arrington of Lawrenceville, Ga.; sisters, Martha Hurt Loewy of Philadelphia, Pa., Sally Hurt Fleming (Dr. Lamar) of Atlanta, Ga., Clyde Hurt Feil (Otto) of Atlanta, Ga.; and six nieces and nephews. Anna was born August 20, 1934 in Atlanta where she grew up. Her parents, Anne Phillips Ridley Beauchamp and William Beauchamp, as well as her adoptive father and Anne's second husband, Joel Hurt III, all predeceased her. Anna graduated from Washington Seminary for Girls (now the Westminster Schools) in 1952 and from Hollins College (now University) in 1956. She married Robert M. Jones in 1956. She began her professional life as a dancer in New York City and as an actress in Williamsburg, Va., and Cleveland, Ohio. The couple moved to Los Angeles, Calif. in 1959, where Anna began teaching in private and public schools. After her marriage ended, she worked in television production. Changing her career path in 1976, she worked as a public affairs analyst at the Atlantic Richfield Company in Los Angeles. In 1978, she was named the Arts and Humanities Program Officer for the Atlantic Richfield Foundation, one of the major corporate foundations in the country at that time. She became nationally respected and much beloved for her work with non-profit organizations throughout the country, as well as in the Los Angeles arts community. She led in many ground-breaking arts projects, just a few examples of which were the Black Folk Arts Exhibit and the Hispanic Arts in America Exhibit, both initially at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the early activities of the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Holocaust Studies in Los Angeles. She was the founding president of Arts Inc., a non-profit entity providing support to a wide range of organizations in the Los Angeles basin. In 1979, she married Breck Arrington, a widower and lawyer/executive with the Atlantic Richfield Company. They took early retirement from ARCO and its Foundation at the end of 1985, moving to Washington, D.C. Anna became Director of Development for the Aspen Music Festival in New York City and Aspen, Colo., while Breck served as vice president of a Washington, D.C. consulting firm. After three years of service with Aspen, Anna turned to consulting work with a number of significant cultural organizations. In 1991, the couple moved to Richmond, living in the Church Hill Old and Historic District. At that point, Anna retired but partnered with Breck in his capacity as executive vice president (chief operating officer) of


This obituary was originally published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.