Digital Augusta

Augusta, Kansas

1984-01-25
Collection: 1984

Title

1984-01-25

1984-01-26

Subject

Hutter, John C.

Description

Obituaries published in the Augusta Daily Gazette

Creator

Augusta Daily Gazette, Augusta, Kansas, USA

Source

Augusta Historical Museum, Augusta, Kansas, USA

Publisher

Augusta Public Library, Augusta, Kansas, USA

Date

1984-01-25

1984-01-26

Rights

In Copyright In Copyright

Published with permission of copyright holder. Further reproduction prohibited.

Format

Clippings

Language

English

Type

application/pdf



Citation
Augusta Daily Gazette, Augusta, Kansas, USA, “1984-01-25,” Digital Augusta, accessed November 23, 2024, https://augusta.digitalsckls.info/item/191.
Text

The Augusta Daily Gazette

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1984
JOHN HUTTER .. a winning coach
Former AHS Coach Dies At Hospital
John Hutter, the winningest basketball coach at Augusta High School, died this morning at the St. Francis Regional Medical Center in Wichita.
Hutter was coach of football, basketball and track athletes at AHS from 1944 to 1966.
Augusta’s high school gymnasium was dedicated to the former teacher-coach in 1981 and he recently attended a basketball game there.
Former school board president Frank Miller once said coach Hutter “took some of the most awkward kids in school and made them into athletic winners. If John saw a kid with talent, he’d stay after him until he got him out for sports.”
Funeral arrangements are pending.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 1984
John Hutter Funeral Set For Saturday At AHS Gym
The high school gymnasium named in his honor three years ago will be site of a Saturday morning funeral for John C. Hutter, former football-basketball-track coach here.
Hutter, the school’s winningest basketball coach with a record of 340-121-1, died yesterday at the St. Francis Regional Medical Center in Wichita at the age of 66.
His funeral will begin at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in the high school gym. Rev. Thomas Kelly, assisted by Rev. Amos Williams, will officiate. Burial will be in Elmwood Cemetery.
Memorials to a high school scholarship fund and/or the Augusta Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) have been suggested by the family.
John Calvin Hutter was born here Jan. 28, 1917 to Andrew Clinton and Flora Ethel Sapp Hutter.
His first wife, the former Thelma R. Thompson, died Feb. 13, 1970. His second wife, Loventrice, survives.
The teacher-coach also leaves three sons: John Jr. of Glenview, Ill., Tom of Yukon, Okla., and Clint of Oklahoma City, Okla.; two brothers, Clinton and Joe, both of Augusta; a sister, Edith Budette of Ozark, Mo., and six grandchildren.
After coaching here from 1944 to 1966, Hutter coached at Hoisington before retiring to Great Bend in 1976.
“When I came to Augusta, the high school had only two basketballs,” Hutter said at the March 4, 1981 gym dedication ceremony during a sub-state basketball tourney. “The junior high basketball team had only one basketball. There were 13 football jerseys and they were black. My wife sewed patches on to keep them usable. If the other team was going to wear their dark jerseys, we had to wear our white practice jerseys.”
Hutter never had a state champion in basketball but came close several times. His only state championship came in track in 1957.
Hutter coached the AHS Orioles to two undefeated seasons and 27 straight victories between 1957 and 1959. The ’57 and ’58 teams were undefeated, but there was no state playoff system.
Clare Patterson Jr., a former pupil of coach Hutter, said, “He taught us to be good sports. When we lost, we were to think about what we did wrong and why we lost...More than anything else, I think he taught us not to make mistakes.”
Former school board president Frank Miller played on one of the football teams coached by Hutter. Miller said Hutter was a fair disciplinarian with a “natural gift” to bring out the best in young athletes.

Original Format

Newspaper clipping