Roy Allan Hudson

1917 - 2013

Roy Allan Hudson, 95, died Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013, in Arlington after a brief respiratory illness. Burial: will be in Roy's home town of Fort Smith, Ark., following a private memorial service. Roy was born Nov. 30, 1917, in his maternal grandfather's house in Fort Smith, Ark. He grew up in Fort Smith, attaining the rank of Eagle Scout and playing saxophone and clarinet in the Fort Smith Senior High School Grizzly Bear Marching Band. After graduating from Fort Smith Senior High School in 1935, he played in local jazz and swing bands before earning a private pilot's license in the years before World War II. Roy was commissioned as an officer in the Army Air Corps in October 1941, becoming one of the first graduates of Randolph Field in San Antonio, known at the time as the "West Point of the Air." He was promoted to the rank of captain during World War II, and was a flight instructor during the war. Of all the many avocations in his life, he loved flying the best. After the war, he graduated with a bachelor of arts from the University of Arkansas in 1948, and pursued graduate studies in foreign service and international relations at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. On Aug. 4, 1949, he married Catherine Bront, who predeceased him in 2000, and they had two children, David Keith Hudson of Dalworthington Gardens, and Catherine Lane Farrelly of Plano. Roy worked as a credit manager and chemical industry salesman in the 1950s before starting the Roy A. Hudson Company in 1960, which sold and designed agricultural and industrial equipment for almost 50 years throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and New Mexico. Roy also composed poetry, short stories, sang in several church and community choruses, and served as a community activist in matters such as neighborhood zoning, Trinity River flood control, and airport policies. He was published as a guest columnist in the Dallas Morning News on several occasions. Most of all, he was a loving father and grandfather and a quick-witted and colorful character who had a way of stirring things up that was all his own. Survivors: Roy is survived by his two children, David and Catherine "Katie" mentioned above; daughter-in-law, Suzanne Hudson; son-in-law, Justin Farrelly; and grandchildren, Samuel Alexander Hudson, Sarah Jillian Hudson, Christopher James Hudson, Charlotte Grace Hudson and Grace Catherine Farrelly.