C. Craig Wright M.D.

C. Craig Wright, M.D.
C. Craig Wright, M.D., passed away at 96 in the north Atlantic on May 6, 2025. Known to his five grandchildren as "Grancraig", he was born in Cambridge, Ohio on November 23, 1928. to Kathleen Vivian Craig (Anderson) and Charles Thomas Wright. While he was in elementary school his family moved to a dairy farm in southeast Ohio where his mother also taught school. During his four years at Madison High School, he won six varsity letters in basketball and track and played trumpet in the school band. He graduated as class president and valedictorian.
He attended The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio on numerous scholastic scholarships earning B.A., M.S. and M.D. degrees and being awarded membership in undergraduate and medical scholastic honorary societies. During his time at the university, he was a four-year member of the Symphonic Choir, active in multiple campus activities, salaried Secretary of the Fraternity Affairs Office, and President of his undergraduate and medical fraternities.
He married his beloved Barbara Ann Guy, a student and artist in commercial art, on September 14, 1952, at the start of his senior year in Medical School.
Following graduation, Dr. Wright completed a Medical-Surgical Internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. He then entered the United States Air Force (Medical Corps) where he served as Base Flight Surgeon, Shaw Air Force Base, Tactical Air Command. His duties also included command of an airborne field tactical infirmary and direction of an altitude chamber unit engaged in training TAC and SAC pilots in the use of partial pressure and full pressure suits.
Leaving active duty with the rank of Captain, he returned to The Ohio State University for a three-year residency in Aviation Medicine. The final year of this program was spent with Pan Am World Airways at what was then Idlewild (now JFK) Airport in New York City where he developed the training program for emergency procedures to be followed if a decompression event occurred in one of the newly introduced fleets of Boeing 707 aircraft.
Following the residency, Craig and Barbara moved several times through a series of employment with the Reynolds Metals Company in Muscle Shoals, Alabama; the United States Steel Corporation in Pittsburgh and Hempstead, Pennsylvania and the Xerox
Corporation in Rochester, New York and Stamford, Connecticut. At his retirement, as Medical Director of Xerox in 1987, he served as a medical consultant for the Perkin-Elmer Corporation and the Southern New England Telephone Company.
During his professional career, Dr. Wright was certified by the American Board of Preventive Medicine as a diplomat in Aviation Medicine and Occupational Medicine and was the author of twenty-three published scientific articles. He was active in numerous medical associations and served as President of the American Academy of Occupational Medicine and of, what later became, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medical Association. In 1997, this latter association gave Dr. Wright the William S. Knudsen Award, its highest honor, for his distinguished career in occupational medicine.
Of all his activities while a local resident, Craig derived great enjoyment in serving as President of the United Way of New Canaan and in his involvement with the New Canaan Men's Club. While he enjoyed watching amateur club and high school athletic teams, he was almost a zealot for the UConn Huskies women's basketball team, the New York Yankees and The Ohio State University 'Buckeye' football team. His other hobbies included skiing, tennis, paddle tennis and. photography.
Love of travel and color slide photography began with a round-the world trip while with Pan American, Dr. Wright and his wife Barbara visited all seven continents and over eighty countries. Dr. Wright passed away doing what he loved, traveling the globe with his best girl, Barbie.
He is survived by his beloved wife of 72 years; twin daughters Cynthia Arpag and spouse Dean of Middlesex New York, Cristina Kords and spouse Donald of Fairport, New York; son Dr. David Wright and spouse Holley of New Canaan; and grandchildren Alexander Arpag and spouse Julia, great grandsons; Wylder and Atlas, Lauren Arpag, Michael Kords and Bailey Wright and partner Justin and MacLean Wright and spouse Elena.
Dr. Wright donated his body to the Yale University School of Medicine Anatomy Department for medical student education.
Plans for a family memorial celebration are pending.
Memorial donations may be made to the Whittingham Cancer Center at Norwalk Hospital, Norwalk, Connecticut or the New Canaan Volunteer Ambulance Corps, P.O. Box 598, New Canaan, Connecticut 06840-0083.