He was born to A. R. Huckins, Sr., a city policeman, and his wife Rose Hirsch, and lived to age 20 in Portland, Oregon. Even at the age of 13, working in a shoe store for $3 a week, he knew he wanted to be a doctor.
Ray enlisted in the US Navy Reserve while a high school senior in 1938, and was called to active duty as a junior at Reed College, nine months before Pearl Harbor. He applied for and gained a position as a First Class Pharmacist's Mate at Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston. There he met Betty Larsen; they were married in April 1942, before he shipped off to a mobile naval hospital in the South Pacific, where he developed a new procedure for quick blood typing, saving many lives. He briefly returned stateside to do research at the Rockefeller Institute in New York in 1944, then shipped out to Guam to help establish Naval Medical Research Unit #2 and do research in tropical diseases. In 1945, he had volunteered for a parachute jump into China, to fight an epidemic of bubonic plague, when the atomic bombs ended the war.
After the war, Ray finished his Chemistry BS at Reed College, then entered the University of Oregon Medical School, where he earned both an MS in Physiology and his MD in 1950 (the first student in the school's history to do so within four years). He also co-authored a book on congestive heart failure. Betty worked, and Ray, while studying medicine, had part-time jobs as a lab technician, tow truck driver and janitor to pay his way through school, just as he had done at Reed College.
After eight years of marriage, the new Dr. Ray and Betty moved to Santa Barbara for his internship at Cottage Hospital and Santa Barbara County Hospital. They moved to Ojai in 1951, where he lived the last 60 years of his life. He worked with Dr. Rupp for three years before starting his own private practice as a family doctor; he continued his practice until retiring in 1996.
Ray was appointed to the Ojai Planning Commission and later to the Ojai City Council. He was elected in his own right for two more Council terms, and was Ojai Mayor in the late 1960s. He was head of the Ventura County Medical Society and a driving force behind the establishment of the Ojai Valley Hospital (later serving as Chief of Staff there).
He was an involved, life-long participant in conservative Republican politics: a founder of the first Ventura County chapter of the United Republicans of California; was appointed to the Republican state central committee; was nominated to the Board of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons; and was a trustee of the Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, NY.
During their 67 years of marriage, Ray and Betty had three children: Judith (Stephen) Quilici, Janice (Robert) Judson, and Todd Huckins; four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
The family wishes to thank Dr. Ray Sims and Lorann Sims for years of devoted medical care; Dr. Fred Fauvre, for kindness and care during several crises this past year; and the wonderful staffs at Ojai Valley Community Hospital and St. Joseph's for their skill, joy, and personal attention to Ray in the final few months and days of his life.
Funeral arrangements are being made through Ted Mayr in Ventura. Burial will be a private, family affair. The family invites Ray's and Betty's friends to their home at 516 West Eucalyptus in Ojai on Saturday, December 17, 2-4 PM for snacks, soft drinks and reminiscing.
In lieu of flowers, etc., the family would prefer a donation to Ojai Valley Community Hospital, which Dr. Huckins valued so highly.
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