Cape furniture merchant, community leader Hutson, 65, dies

The downtown dreamer is gone.

Charles L. "Charlie" Hutson, 65, president of Hutson Enterprises, died of prostate cancer Tuesday afternoon at his home.

Many Cape Girardeau residents have come to associate the holidays with Hutson Furniture Co.'s elaborate downtown Christmas window displays, a 43-year tradition Charlie loved, said longtime friend Jim Wente of Southeast Missouri Hospital.

Charlie was born in Eldorado, Kan. He was a jokester who played pranks on loved ones and liked to collect toys and antique cars.

"He was a little boy at heart," Wente said.

Thread in history

The Hutson family has been a vibrant thread in Cape Girardeau's history. Charlie's grandfather, police chief Nathaniel Jefferson Hutson, was the city's first officer to be killed in the line of duty on Oct. 7, 1922. He was shot by an escaped convict, leaving behind a widow and six children, including Charlie's father, Glenn.

When World War II began, Glenn and a friend opened Hutson and Green Furniture in Cape Girardeau, but the business venture didn't last. Glenn later got a job in a personnel office for the Manhattan Project -- the secret military program that built the first atomic wea-pon.

After the war, Glenn and brother Lynn returned to Cape Girar-deau to open Hutson Bros. Furniture Co. Glenn served on Southeast Missouri Hospital's board of trustees for many years.

Charlie, a 1960 Southeast Missouri State University industrial technology and business graduate, joined the hospital board in 1979 and served four years as president. This year, he earned the hospital's Outstanding Service Award.

The Missouri Hospital Association gave him an Excellence in Governance Award in 1995. Other awards included the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce's 1994 Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. Award, a university Alumni Merit Award and the 1995 Small Business of the Year Award.

Charlie survived several struggles. In 1976, a nail punctured his left eye. In the years afterward, he needed multiple cornea implants. He also survived a brutal mugging in Greensboro, N.C., in 1994, when two men struck his head with a pistol. A witness shouted and the muggers fled. Police told Charlie this likely prevented his murder. Both suspects later received 30-year sentences.

Community betterment

As a Baptist deacon, Charlie once faced criticism from parishioners when he supported a riverboat gambling initiative. Though he did not gamble, he maintained the project would have brought jobs and revenue to the city.

A spirit of community betterment was just pure Charlie, Wente said.

"I loved Charlie Hutson -- a lot of people did," he said. "Charlie Hutson made a difference in Cape Girardeau. He truly did. He was an outstanding community leader and one of those people who truly cared."

Charlie and his wife, Judi, have two sons, David and Christopher. Funeral arrangements are being handled by Ford and Sons Funeral Home Mount Auburn Chapel.

mwells@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160