[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 126 (Monday, August 3, 2026)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E766]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   HONORING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF MR. ROBERT ``BOB'' HUTCHINSON, SR.

                                 ______
                                 

                      HON. SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR.

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, August 3, 2026

  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart to honor a 
man who spent his whole life mending the hearts of others--Mr. Robert 
``Bob'' Hutchinson, Sr., who was called home to glory on Wednesday, 
July 22, 2026, at the age of 77, in the city he loved and served for so 
long, Albany, Georgia. There are homes across Southwest Georgia tonight 
where the light seems a little dimmer, because a man who spent his life 
turning the lights on for children has finally laid down his own. A 
homegoing service to celebrate his remarkable life was held on 
Saturday, August 1, 2026, at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Albany, 
Georgia.
  Bob was born on July 19, 1949, in Ocala, Florida, to the late Clemm 
and Ethlene Blakely Hutchinson. He answered a calling early and never 
once stopped serving. After graduating from high school in 1967, he 
enlisted in the United States Army and gave to his country the same 
devotion he would later give to a generation of children who needed him 
more than they had words to say. For more than forty-five years, Bob 
made a quiet holy promise to every child who crossed his path--that no 
matter where they came from, no matter what they carried, they would 
have a safe place to belong, a mentor who believed in them, and a 
chance to become who God made them to be.
  His life's work found its home in Albany, at the Cedar Avenue Boys 
and Girls Club and there it grew into a legacy that touched an entire 
region. Rising to Director of Operations and ultimately to Chief 
Professional Officer, Bob led the Boys and Girls Clubs of Albany and 
from three locations to eleven, until more than five thousand young 
people were being loved, fed, taught, and lifted every single day. He 
planted Club sites in schools, in churches, in housing communities--
anywhere a hurting child might be--because he could not bear the 
thought of one boy or one girl being too far from a hand that would 
reach for them. And in 1995, he flung the doors open to girls as well, 
because in Bob's heart there was not one child on this earth who did 
not deserve to be believed in.
  The world gave Bob its honors, and they were many--Leadership Albany, 
the Law Day USA Liberty Bell Award, the Herman Prescott Award, the 
David Roark Light the Path Award, and in 2016, induction into the 
Georgia Boys and Girls Club Hall of Fame. He earned every one. But Mr. 
Speaker, I stand here to testify that Bob Hutchinson's name is written 
in a greater Hall of Fame than any this world can offer.
  The eleventh chapter of Hebrews records what the saints have long 
called the Hall of Faith--God's own roll call of the faithful. By faith 
Abraham. By faith Moses. By faith Sarah. These are the men and women 
who, Scripture says, ``all died in faith, not having received the 
promises, but having seen them afar off.'' And of one of them the Word 
says something that could have been written for Bob Hutchinson himself: 
``he being dead yet speaketh.'' Mr. Speaker, that is Bob. He is gone 
from us--but he is not silent. He still speaks. He speaks every time a 
child he mentored chooses hope over despair. He speaks every time a 
young man who had no father remembers the man who chose to father him 
anyway. He speaks in ten thousand lives, and he will go on speaking 
long after every one of us in this Chamber has been forgotten.
  You do not measure a man like Bob by buildings or by plaques. You 
measure him by the frightened child who walked through a Club door with 
his head down and walked back out with his head up. You measure him by 
the boys and girls--now grown into teachers, ministers, business 
owners, mothers, and fathers--who still cannot speak his name without 
their voices breaking. Somewhere tonight there is a grown man who 
learned to tie his shoes, to shake a hand, to look another person in 
the eye, because Bob Hutchinson took the time. That man will carry Bob 
with him to his own grave, and hand him to his children after that. 
This is the true Hall of Fame--the one written not in bronze, but in 
the living hearts of the people he refused to give up on.
  Through all of it, beside this remarkable man stood the love of his 
life, his devoted wife of fifty-five years, Lula Peterson Hutchinson. 
Fifty-five years. Through every trial and every triumph, she never let 
go of his hand. Together they raised three children--Rodney, Michelle, 
and Robert, Jr.--and were blessed with four grandchildren and four 
great-grandchildren. And among the countless he fathered was his 
devoted protege, Marvin Laster, who loved him not as a supervisor but 
as a daddy. When a man's employees weep for him like sons, they have 
learned everything they will ever need to know about how he lived.
  Mr. Speaker, the Scripture says we are surrounded by ``so great a 
cloud of witnesses.'' Bob Hutchinson has taken his place in that number 
now. And so, on behalf of Georgia's 2nd Congressional District, I ask 
my colleagues to join my wife Vivian and me, along with the more than 
765,00 people of Georgia's 2nd Congressional District in mourning his 
loss and celebrating his life. To Lula, to his children, grandchildren, 
and to the countless sons and daughters of Southwest Georgia who called 
him family--we grieve with them, and we thank God for the gift of him. 
Rest now, Bob. Well done, good and faithful servant. He has fought a 
good fight, he has finished his course, he has kept the faith--and 
generations yet unborn will rise up and call him blessed.

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