09/04/2024
With a heavy heart, we will share here the sad news that the last remaining charter member of the Santa Maria Noontimers Lions has passed away. Richard Hall helped charter our club in 1963! Due to the decline in membership, the Santa Maria Noonters merged with ORCUTT LIONS CLUB in July of 2023, 60 years after it was first chartered.
We remember Richard with much gratitude, appreciation, and admiration. He lives on in our hearts and in our service as Lions.
Richard John Hall age 90, died on August 16, 2024, in Nipomo California. He was born on March 3, 1934, in Charleston, West Virginia to Marshall Snead and Violet Wright. His parents divorced in 1941 and Violet later married Charles Elsie Hall. Richard graduated from Elkview High School in West Virginia in 1952 and served with the U.S. Marines in Korea from 1953 to 1955. Upon returning from his Korean tour he married his high school sweetheart, and the love of his life, Gertrude Inez Adkins, “Trudy” on June 10, 1955. They relocated to Hawthorne, California where he worked in the automobile repair business while attending school to study the field of accounting, finally graduating from UCLA in 1962. By this time he and Trudy had two sons, Paul and Blaine.
Upon graduating from UCLA, the family moved to Santa Maria, California for his new employment with Schmidt, Jordan, and Company, CPA’s. After a little over two years, in 1964, he accepted employment as controller of Williams Brothers Markets, Inc., a central California grocery and property development, management chain. He was a California Certified Public Accountant. He was active in community, organizations including Santa Maria Valley Beautiful’s First treasurer, Toastmasters Club, YMCA director, Little League, Indian Guides, Scouts Cubmaster, and a 57 years charter member of the Santa Maria Noontimers Lions Club. He was very proud of his 55 years of “100% Attendance “ while a member of the Noontimers Lions Club, which met weekly on Wednesdays.
Richard and his wife Trudy, loved to travel and they consider themselves very fortunate to have visited over 80 countries, some more than once, and all fifty states of the United States during their lifetime.
Survivors include Trudy, his wife of 69 years, two sons, six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
Memorial services in Santa Maria are under the arrangement of Dudley-Hoffman Mortuary and are pending.
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