Louise Ann Hutchinson

Louise A. Hutchinson, 90, of Williamsburg, Virginia, a former reporter and Washington correspondent with the Chicago Tribune, died March 29, 2017 in the Hospice Care Unit of Williamsburg Sentara Hospital of cancer.

Ms. Hutchinson was with the Chicago Tribune for 22 years, eight of them in the newspaper’s Washington bureau. Among her assignments was coverage of eight national political conventions, the 1972 Nixon Moscow summit, and a trip to the Antarctic in 1971 when she became the first woman to spend the night at the South Pole.

Ms. Hutchinson also traveled frequently with Mrs. Lyndon Johnson and Mrs. Richard Nixon. In 1970-1971 she was president of the Women’s National Press Club which in 1971 merged with the National Press Club.

In 1966 she won the Tribune’s top staff award for reporting and in 1969 she won an Associated Press award for a story related to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne in the car of Senator Edward Kennedy at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts.

On leaving the Chicago Tribune in 1973, Ms. Hutchinson became a public information officer for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, then press secretary to the late Illinois Congressman Robert McClory.

She later worked for several non-profit associations and retired in 1991 as director of member and public information for the National Association of Children’s Hospitals in Alexandria, Virginia.

In 1969 she received an honorary doctorate of letters degree from Blackburn College, Carlinville, Illinois, which she attended for two years before graduating from the University of Iowa.

Born and raised in Chicago, Ms. Hutchinson lived in the Washington, D.C. area for 27 years before moving to Williamsburg in 1993 where she was active in Democratic politics and the League of Women Voters, and remained so until her death.

There will be no services and cremation was handled by the Nelsen Funeral Home in Williamsburg. She is survived by her cousins and chosen family. An afternoon tea will be held in her honor on Saturday, April 29 from 2 to 5 p.m at Powhatan Secondary Clubhouse Community Center, 201 Charter House Lane, Williamsburg, VA 23188.

Memorial donations may be made to the Williamsburg Regional Library or Williamsburg Hospice.