In memoriam: John Hodges: Be irreverent

FFRF Member John Bryan Hodges died of a heart attack on Nov. 27, 2018.

He was born May 9, 1952, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Oxon Hill, Md. From there, he moved to Blacksburg, Va., to attend Virginia Polytechnic Institute, where he studied economics, electrical engineering and philosophy.

After graduation, he lived in Denver for about seven years before returning to Blacksburg, where he lived until his death, just one month before his scheduled retirement from the National Bank of Blacksburg.

John was a very kind person with a prodigious memory and keen sense of humor, able to recite jokes from comic strips he had enjoyed, humorous stories, poetry and quotes from serious articles and books.   

With a lifelong interest and dedication to philosophy, he was a humanist, writing that what matters most is how we treat other people and the natural world. 

As he often ended his writings, “Do justice, love mercy and be irreverent.”