Former state Sen. Bill Hughes had such a way with people that even his opponents praised him for his integrity and thoughtfulness, said former U.S. Sen. Hank Brown.
Hughes, a former chairman of the Joint Budget Committee in the Colorado General Assembly, died of pancreatic cancer June 12 in Littleton. He was 75.
“He was so masterful” when the committee had to make cuts in the budget that people liked Hughes even though he cut their departments’ funds, said Brown, who served in the legislature before being elected to Congress.
“He wasn’t tough or mean or stingy,” said Brown, now chairman of the Daniels Fund. “He always listened to people, rather than cutting them to ribbons,” which had happened with former JBC chairmen.
Hughes’ biggest interests were “mental health, health care and less federal government control,” said his daughter Susan Hughes-Swank of Cherry Hills Village. “He was a conservative and believed the states should have the power.”
He sponsored one bill that would put a cap on state salaries. Hughes fought hard, but unsuccessfully, to get a bill through the legislature that would give it power to oversee how federal money is spent in Colorado.
Hughes, who served in the legislature from 1976 until 1981, dropped out to run for governor but couldn’t raise enough money, Hughes-Swank said.
William James Hughes was born in Kansas City, Kan., on Feb. 21, 1935, and graduated from high school there.
He attended the University of Kansas, then joined the Navy and was in pilot training. He and his first wife, Barbara Beckham Hughes, had three daughters. He married Dr. Catherine Kenny in 1992.
He earned his bachelor’s degree at Emporia State in Kansas and his master’s in clinical social work at KU.
He was director of Gillis Children’s Treatment Program in Kansas City before moving to Colorado Springs to become executive director of the Colorado Springs Family Counseling Program. It merged later with another agency and became the Pikes Peak Mental Health Center. Hughes was associate director of that center before running for the legislature.
When he left the legislature, he became a lobbyist and then executive director of the Colorado Railroad Association.
In addition to his wife and daughter, he is survived by two other daughters, Kathy Hughes-Garcia of Colorado Springs and Betsy Hughes of Volin, S.D.; eight grandchildren; and two brothers, Robert Hughes of Colorado Springs and Skip Hughes of Phoenix.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
