For more than half a century, Charles Hugh Hudgins ’62 provided funds that changed the lives of Birmingham-Southern College students. He gave consecutively to BSC for 58 years — he was the longest Ginkgo Society member. In 1989, he established what he called “enablement awards” — officially known as the Hudgins Endowed Scholarship — since his own attendance at BSC was enabled by financial aid.

Hudgins, who passed away on Aug. 23, 2022, in San Diego, Calif., remembered his days at BSC as the happiest and most rewarding of his life, and it was his desire that the funds he provided, both during his lifetime and through a generous testamentary gift, bolster the education of countless individuals who might not otherwise be able to attend BSC.

Before arriving on the Hilltop, Hudgins grew up on a small cotton farm on Sand Mountain, near Albertville, in northeast Ala, where he was born on March 17, 1941.

Hudgins graduated from Birmingham-Southern summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in economics, before attending the University of Virginia as a Thomas Jefferson Fellow, receiving his master’s degree in economics in 1963. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and was featured in Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities. Hudgins began his career in data processing in 1964 with Dow Chemical Company in Williamsburg, Va., and in 1968, he became director of data processing for Mason and Company, a member firm of the New York Stock Exchange as well as a systems engineer for IBM. He accepted a faculty position at the University of Virginia in 1974, where he was professor of management science and assistant vice president for communications. Later, he joined the University of California San Diego as director of information systems, where he retired in 1993 as director of administrative computing.

Hudgins served as the founding chairman of the Master Plan Committee of St. Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego, which oversaw complete restoration of the Cathedral shell, including replacement of all roof tiles, repairing and sealing all exterior surfaces, and re-seating the stained-glass windows. The project received the 2001 San Diego American Architectural Association’s “Orchid Award” for outstanding historical preservation. Hudgins also wrote hymn text. In 2000, his “Hymn For Jubilee” received commendation from Queen Elizabeth and the Archbishop of Canterbury and an invocation of blessing from Pope John Paul II.

Hudgins requested that his body be donated to the UCSD School of Medicine for medical teaching purposes. The remains will be cremated, and the ashes scattered at sea in solemn ceremony from one of UCSD’s research vessels. Hudgins’ life will be memorialized in the Columbarium of St. Paul’s Cathedral with his life partner, Nay Bergbom, who passed away in 1998. Charles is survived by his sister, Dot Hudgins Fricks ’68.