We are saddened to report the death of distinguished Canadian author, teacher and humanist, Pat Duffy Hutcheon, on February 4, 2010. Ms Duffy Hutcheon was the personification of intelligence, compassion, and bravery - a true Humanist. See also an article in the news section by her good friend, Conrad Hadland.  A memorial service will be held at noon on Saturday, March 27, 2010, at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver located on the northeast corner of Oak Street and 49th Avenue.

Raised during the Great Depression on a drought-stricken Alberta farm, Pat Duffy Hutcheon grew up to become a country schoolteacher. Over the next thirty years, she was an early practitioner of work-study, acquiring higher degrees as she worked her way up the teaching career ladder. She earned a B.A. in education, followed by an M.A. in sociology and anthropology from the University of Calgary.  Then she went on to study sociology at Yale University and at the University of Queensland, the longest-established university in the state of Queensland, Australia, where she completed her Ph.D. in 1976.

Having acquired broad experience teaching at multiple levels of the public school system, she rose to teach courses in the sociology of education and early childhood education at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan. She later served as a research advisor to the Health Promotion Branch of the Canadian Department of Health and Welfare and, following early retirement from university teaching, served as a research consultant and as a director of the Vanier Institute of the Family.

Her later years were devoted to writing. Her most recent books include: The Lonely Trail (Life Journey of a Freethinker); Leaving the Cave; Building Character and Culture (1999); and The Road to Reason: Landmarks in the Evolution of Humanist Thought (2001). She was honoured with the Humanist Association of Canada's Humanist of the Year Award in 2000 and the American Humanist Association's Humanist Distinguished Service Award in 2001. She also served on the drafting committee for Humanism and its Aspirations, subtitled Humanist Manifesto III, a successor to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933.