A.B. "Bob" Hudson, 84, of Maple Hill, Kan., passed away on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2008, at his home in Wichita Falls due to complications of lung cancer.
Survivors include Peggye McNair; his daughter Michele Rothe of Steamboat Springs, Colo.; his sons John Hudson of Topeka and Tom and his wife Cindy Hudson of Tucson, Ariz.; his grandchildren, Nathan, Rachele, Nichole and Angela; and niece Joyce and her husband Ben Sharp. Extended family includes Peggye's sons Russell Moore and family of Alpine, Texas, and Morgan Moore and family of Santa Monica, California. He was preceded in death by his parents John and Allie Hudson; his brothers and sister, T.J., M.R. and Mary Hudson.
Mr. Hudson found lasting love late in life, but he and Peggye had 12 beautiful years traveling the world, working the land and enjoying the camels together in health and happiness.
A.B. was born in Athens, Texas, on March 8, 1923, and moved to Kansas at age 7 where he worked with his brothers after school as a partner in Hudson Oil Company. At age 16 Bob began working full time in Hudson Oil. Hudson Oil was later sold to Koch Oil. Bob began his own companies, Workingman's Friend and Highway Oil, in 1958, which grew to include over 700 employees. He later moved his office and 14 employee families to Topeka to be closer to his ranch land. At one time Bob was the single largest landowner in the State of Kansas.
Mr. Hudson was an innovative steward of the land and a true gentleman of great wisdom, who by clearing the land returned it to beautiful grasslands with running water and bubbling springs. Bob was also one of the largest independent cattleman in Kansas and Texas for many years. He added camels to his portfolio and is now the largest camel breeder in America.
A.B. was an anonymous benefactor in so many areas including rebuilding churches, supporting museums, and most recently creating a Foundation to help rebuild Greensburg, Kansas, homes after the devastating tornado in 2007. He was a major benefactor of the Mayo Foundation. Bob was a lifetime member of the Shriners and he was in the Mounted Patrol. He and his beloved horse, Hobo, made appearances all over the United States from California to the White House.
Bob received too many lifetime honors and achievements to list but was most proud of his agricultural impact and its effect on the world. Bob's latest project was a devotion to wind energy to further preserve mother earth.
Bob's only other great love was quail hunting which he did four months out of the year for 56 years. He recently completed his autobiography, "Life of a Dropout."
Rancher, businessman, entrepreneur, inventor, world traveler and benefactor, Bob will be remembered in many ways and missed by all. His wisdom, guidance, love and compassion for family and employees will be dearly missed. Many of Bob's employees have been with him for over 47 years and all are considered family.
A Celebration of his life will be held at 10 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 22, 2008, at Penwell-Gabel Southwest Chapel, 3700 SW Wanamaker Road, and for those unable to attend, it will be broadcast live at www.PenwellGabel.com. A second service will follow at 1:30 p.m. at the Muehlebach Funeral Home, 6800 Troost, Kansas City, Mo. Burial will be in the Forest Hill Cemetery in Kansas City. Bob will lie in state at Penwell-Gabel Southwest Chapel after 3 p.m. today.
Should anyone desire, you may join Bob in supporting the Shriners. Bob's life desire upon his death was to leave his entire estate to the Shriners to assist in building more Shriners Crippled Childrens Hospitals and Burn Centers across the United States. Memorial contributions may be sent to Arab Shrine, 1305 S. Kansas Ave, Topeka, Kan., 66612 or Ararat Shriners, 5100 Ararat Drive, Kansas City, 64129.
To leave a special message for the family online, visit www.PenwellGabel.com
Mary Hudson, 86, Entrepreneur Who Built Hudson Oil Empire
Published: September 5, 1999
PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan., Sept. 4— Mary Hudson, who built an oil empire that made her one of America's richest entrepreneurs, died on Thursday at her home. She was 86 and lived in Prairie Village, a suburb of Kansas City.
The cause was cancer, said her daughter, Joyce Driver Sharp of Prairie Village, who said she became ill in July, but was given a diagnosis of cancer only two weeks ago.
In 1933, after her husband was killed in a truck accident, Ms. Hudson borrowed $200 from her father to open her first Hudson Oil station in Kansas City. It was the first of more than 300 gas stations and convenience stores that became a $325 million business.
Much of her business fell apart in the 1980's after a string of court judgments entered against her company for overcharging customers at the pumps and for underpaying some employees. She pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit felony theft in connection with the overcharges and was ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.
She rebounded in the final years of her career, however, to oversee a smaller, rejuvenated operation.
Ms. Hudson started Hudson Oil Company at age 21, while caring for a 6-month-old daughter, and built it into a chain of stations with a reputation for low prices and no-frills service. The stations were among the first in the country to feature self-service.
By the early 1980's, her private-brand refining and retail marketing companies operated more than 300 stations and convenience stores in 35 states.
Hudson Oil also ran an oil refinery in Cushing, Okla.
Her business interests soured in the early 1980's, when the United States petroleum industry crashed. At a time when the industry was sitting on huge reserves of oil selling for $43 a barrel, Middle East producers began flooding the market, and prices plunged to $10 a barrel. Hudson closed its Cushing refinery.
''We were losing $500,000 a month,'' Ms. Hudson recalled in a 1993 interview. ''We had no other choice.''
In 1984, the company defaulted on a $20 million line of credit at United Missouri Bank and banks in Chicago and Oklahoma City. Hudson Oil and eight affiliated companies filed for reorganization in Federal Bankruptcy Court in Kansas City, Kan.
Meanwhile, a corporate reorganization dragged on for six years as, piece by piece, the company's properties were sold to pay creditors. Mary Hudson lost control of the company.
In 1993, at age 80, she oversaw an operation that included cattle ranches, farms, several Handy Stop convenience stores and a petroleum consulting firm in Russia.
Recently, she had been selling those properties, while continuing to operate farms in Nevada.
She was particularly proud of her membership in the Twenty-Five Year Club, an organization of top oil company executives. She was the only female member.
''They treat me just as nice as if I was one of them -- I am one of them -- and if you checked it out, I'm probably worth more than a lot of them,'' she said of her fellow club members in a 1995 interview.
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/05/us/mary-hudson-86-entrepreneur-who-built-hudson-oil-empire.html
Shriners International, previously known as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (A.A.O.N.M.S.) and also commonly known as Shriners, was established in 1870, and is an appendant body to Freemasonry.
The name change from the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, as well as Shriners North America, to Shriners International was facilitated in 2010 across North America, Central America, South America, Europe and Southeast Asia.[1] The organization is best known for the Shriners Hospitals for Children it administers, and the red fezzes that members wear. The organization is headquartered in Tampa, Florida.[2] Shriners International describes itself as a fraternity based on fun, fellowship and the Masonic principles of brotherly love, relief and truth. There are approximately 340,000 members from 195 temples (chapters) in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, the Republic of Panama, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Europe and Australia.
Membership
Despite its theme, the Shrine is not connected to Arab culture or Islam. It is a men's fraternity rather than a religion or religious group. Its only religious requirement is indirect: all Shriners must be Masons, and petitioners to Freemasonry must profess a belief in a Supreme Being. To further minimize confusion with religion, the use of the words "temple" and "mosque" to describe Shriners' buildings has been replaced by "Shrine Center", although individual local chapters are still called temples.Until 2000, before being eligible for membership in the Shrine, a person had to complete either the Scottish Rite or York Rite degrees of Masonry,[8] but now any Master Mason can join.[9]
Shriners count among their ranks presidents, senators, local business leaders, professional golfers, country music stars, astronauts and racecar drivers.[10]
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