Here are some memories I wrote down in memoriam to Mark after he passed:
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Mark Hufford, one of my best friends from high school, passed away a week and a half ago. He was funny, smart, competitive, and kind. I always felt totally at ease over at his house – his Mom was an amazing artist and she always welcomed his friends with a beautiful smile, and his brother Steve, a year ahead of us in school, was a great “big brother” to both Mark and Mark’s friends. The highlight of my high-school days was Saturday morning football games at “Hufford Field,” a grass field in a small valley bordered by trees and houses on each side (now called Broyhill Forest Park) that was just down the street from Mark’s house. The start time was 10 AM (if my memory is correct), and often, if Mark was not there, after we ran a few plays, he would come running down the hill out from the trees and onto the field. Simple rules: 3 completes is a first down, rushers have to count 3 Mississippis before they can cross the line of scrimmage, and two hands anywhere to down the guy with the ball. I don’t know who conceived of the “Huff play,” but it was pretty much a guaranteed complete. Mark lined up as the center (i.e., he would hike the ball to the quarterback), and everyone else (receivers) lined up to his left. After Mark hiked the ball, all the receivers ran a slant to the right, and Mark ran to the left behind the line of scrimmage and then down the field. Often, he scored a touchdown (see diagram).
Mark and I spent a lot of time on the tennis court playing each other and also playing doubles together. He was better than me, and our senior year he played #3 and I played #4. Also, that was the year of the “Dawn Patrol”: every Saturday at 5:30 AM we carpooled with each other to an indoor tennis center (Fairfax Racquet Club?) to get coaching from the tennis pro there (who looked about as awake as we were) and play against other kids. One time, when it was Mark’s turn to drive, when he got to my house I was still asleep (don’t know if I forgot to set my alarm or slept through it). If it had been me, I probably would have rung the doorbell and woken up everyone in the house, but fortunately Mark had more sense than me and I still remember the sound of pebbles trampolining off the large screen of the window on my ground floor bedroom.
Mark was also my lab partner in advanced biology. More than once either he or I would raise our hand and say in jest, “Mr. Allen, I want a new lab partner please.” That was also the class where, during a lab where we were looking at microscope slides of various phytoplankton and zooplankton and looking up descriptions in our textbook, one of our classmates, who will remain anonymous (but you know who you are) asked Mr. Allen about the species turtox. Mr. Allen had to explain to ?? that Turtox was the name of the company that prepared the slides. On the next exam, on the multiple choice question that asked which phylum turtox belonged to, ?? missed that question. Mark was no slouch in academics. He was a member of the Spanish Honor Society all 3 years of high school. In advanced Math (linear algebra, etc.), Mr. Willis was puzzled because Mark and another one of our classmates, Ross Henderson, were not exactly the top scholars in our class, but when it came to taking a national standardized test that all math students at our level took, Mark and Ross trounced everyone else in our class (guess he had other priorities 😊).
Mark was one of my groomsmen when I married Stacy Selke (my former TA in Botany class) in Claremont, CA in August of 1981. Earlier that summer, he and his life love, Leslie Bland, traveled to Seattle and stayed with us for a few days in our apartment. Mark spent his career caring for animals and the planet. Among other things, he started the Carolina Kids Conservancy (https://www.blueridgenow.com/story/news/2000/02/28/injured-wild-animals-soon-will-have-a-new-sanctuary/28112957007/), a nonprofit in North Carolina where he rehabilitated injured wildlife and educated kids about caring for wildlife (https://www.goupstate.com/story/news/2001/09/11/children-meet-once-wild-animals-kids39-conservancy-children-learn-conservation/29636637007/), was the director of PAWS of Bainbridge Island and North Kitsap (https://pawsbink.org/), worked in a wildlife refuge in Baja California Sur in Mexico, helped fundraising for Rescate de lobos marinos (Sea Lion Rescue) (https://www.rescatedelobosmarinos.org/copia-de-inicio), and was on staff at Friends of the Verde River (https://verderiver.org/).
The last time I saw Mark and Leslie was the summer of 2008 when he and Leslie were living on Bainbridge Island. It was so fun to see them again and have them meet Stacy’s and my son Chris (who had just finished his freshman year of college). There were a few mildly competitive (yeah, right) ping-pong matches along with great food and company!
Mark, thank you so much for everything you did for me and everyone else. You were an amazing soul!