Man with a mission
Medical missionary dies in plane crash in Delaware County
Bob Hudson, shown with his wife Pam, would travel for miles to take medical supplies to the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico. Hudson died Wednesday when his airplane crashed near Zena in Delaware County.
Bob Hudson would travel for miles, sometimes on foot, to take medical supplies and the gospel to the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico’s Copper Canyon.
Bob and Pam Hudson spent the past five years as medical missionaries to Mexico, flying in supplies from their home on Grand Lake.
On Wednesday, Bob Hudson, 61, died when the Cessna 172 he was piloting crashed into a field near Zena in Delaware County, minutes after taking off from a grassy runway. The plane lost power, and Hudson was trying to make an emergency landing when the plane struck a tree, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
Hudson had just left his friend Alvin Lee; they had been talking about missionary work.
The Cessna had recently been donated to the Hudsons’ Mexico Medical Missions, Lee said.
“I waved at him and watched him take off,” Lee said. “I was going to drive into Grove and pick him up at the airport.”
It was a 10-minute flight from Lee’s airstrip to the Grove Regional Airport. When Hudson failed to arrive, friends began searching on their fourwheelers. An OHP aircraft spotted the wreckage in a field between Lee’s home and State Highway 127, Lee said.
Hudson had been a pilot for seven years. He retired as a land surveyor from Rose & McCrary, a Grove engineering and land surveying business.
Mexico Medical Missions provided health care, food, shelter, clean water and educational aid, according to a brochure. The Hudsons lived in Mexico and were planning to return in about two weeks, Lee said.
The father of four and grandfather of eight was described as a former pastor, a loving husband, a great missionary and a good friend by messages posted on social media sites.
The Tarahumara Indians live at an altitude of about 8,000 feet, Lee said. The roads are poor. The airplanes make it easier to visit the villagers and to take the sick among them to the hospital.
Hudson had several aircraft based at the Grove airport over the years, said Lisa Jewett, airport manager.
“His heart was always about medical missions and his faith in Jesus was important to him. He shared his faith with everyone,” Jewett said.
“He retired just so he could do medical missions. He was such a great and honorable man. He will be missed by so many,” Jewett said.
“How do you come to grips with such a tragic and sudden loss of a man who, along with his lovely wife Pam, gave so much to help desperately poor people in the far interior of Mexico?” said Doug Anderson, a friend.
“Those he selflessly helped, those he left behind and all the many lives he influenced in such a positive way, will feel his death,” Anderson said.
The OHP said the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Board are investigating the crash.
How do you come to grips with such a tragic and sudden loss of a man who, along with his lovely wife Pam, gave so much to help desperately poor people in the far interior of Mexico? Those he selflessly helped, those he left behind and all the many lives he influenced in such a positive way, will feel his death.”
Doug Anderson, a friend