Northborough – After a twenty-year battle with various cancers, Kenneth Gordon Hutchins Jr. passed away at his home in Northborough, Massachusetts on July 2, 2021.
Born April 5, 1941, in Norwood, Massachusetts, he is survived by his sister Sharon Conley, of Pahrump, Nevada, nine children, forty-nine grandchildren, and his eternal companion, Priscilla Marion (Glass) Hutchins, to whom he was married for sixty years.
After graduating from Walpole High School, Kenneth served in the Navy aboard the USS Cassin Young before returning home to marry Priscilla in 1961. In 1967, they joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a decision that changed the course of their lives and led Kenneth to enroll at Brigham Young University where he received degrees in criminal justice and political science.
For more than forty years Kenneth served as a law enforcement officer in Utah, Colorado, and Massachusetts. While serving as Northborough’s Chief of Police, he established a multi-community SWAT team, graduated from the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and led the Northborough Police Department to become one of the first small town departments in the country to receive national accreditation – something which the department has never since lost.
When he retired in 2003 from his position as Northborough’s Chief of Police, Kenneth accepted a call to serve as a Mission President for the Church in Tampa, Florida. For three years, he and Priscilla supervised the work of more than five hundred young men and women volunteers to share their faith in the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and the restoration of His Church, His priesthood authority and the ordinances of salvation upon the earth.
Upon their return, Kenneth and Priscilla were called to serve a second mission for the Church from 2006 to 2009 as the President and Matron of the Boston Massachusetts Temple (in Belmont, Massachusetts), where he testified daily that families can be reunited after death, for all eternity, through priesthood ordinances. His family rejoices in the knowledge that they will see and be with him again because of the sealing ordinances of the Temple. Kenneth loved composing poetry. A collection of his poems has been published and is available on Amazon under the title “For Crying Out Loud”.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the MetroWest Cancer Care Center.
A funeral will be held on July 9th at 11:00AM at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on 240 Hemenway Street. A Zoom link is available for those who do not live in Massachusetts. A wake will be held on July 8th from 4PM to 7PM at the same location. No Zoom link available for this event. Burial will follow the funeral and be restricted to immediate family only at the Howard Street Cemetery in Northborough.
Our gratitude to the Northborough Police Department for providing escorts and honor guards, and to the Hays Funeral Home, 56 Main Street, Northborough, for assisting with the arrangements.
To leave a condolence for the family, please visit www.HaysFuneralHome.com.
