Webster “Hutch” Hutchins
April 25, 1963 — October 12, 2026
Webster Hutchins
Web was born in Minneapolis, and even though he lived only five minutes from downtown, he grew up skating and fishing in a lake two blocks from his home. After attending Douglass Elementary School with his two brothers, he graduated from West High School in 1981, and as a 4th generation Badger, graduated in 1986 with Distinction in History from the University of Wisconsin (where his Great Uncle Burton also briefly taught chemistry).
In 1983, Hutch spent a summer working in Glacier National Park and fell in love with the mountains, which brought him to Seattle after college with a bunch of Glacier “grads.” Before he started teaching in 1990 in the Seattle Public Schools, Web worked stints as a canoe guide in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, a commercial swordfisherman in Puerto Rico, and a salmon gill-netter in Bristol Bay, Alaska.
Hutch was also a 4th generation teacher. Much like his mom, his outgoing nature, love of adolescent humor, and love for academics and passion for social change for ALL, helped him become a beloved teacher. He made great efforts to relate the past to the present, and to help students develop their own philosophical and political beliefs in order to get ALL students to lift their expectations of themselves. He was most proud of the fact that he was able to motivate thousands of urban youth to do more quality, in-depth critical thinking, and write more endless streams of formal essays than they ever thought possible.
During his 30-year career from 1990 through 2020, he taught high school history and language arts from a civics-centric perspective in the Seattle School District, and was awarded the Washington Civics Teacher of the year in 2013 for his pioneering work with civics and his self-created Civics for All program (www.civicsforall.org). He published many articles and op-eds in favor of civics education and ALWAYS encouraged an active youth voice and political engagement.
Hutch ran a “Singing Club” at Nathan Hale High School, which sang for fun and to entertain at retirement homes. He formed informal fishing clubs at Hale and Franklin; on one glorious September Hale trip to the Skagit River, 11 of 14 students caught salmon and for many of them it was their first!
Hutch also shared his love of the sport of lacrosse by starting the first ever full men’s lacrosse programs in Seattle Public Schools from scratch at Hale and at Franklin. He always remembered when he was introducing the new program to a class and one of the students (thinking lacrosse was polo) asked, “but where are we gonna keep the horses?!”
Web “married late and divorced early” so he never had kids, though he did have many wonderful long-term relationships with students over the years and decades and remained in touch with many long after they graduated.
Hutchins was preceded in death by his parents Terry and Ann and his older brother Traver (2020), and is survived by his brother Grant, and Traver’s children (Jack, Alley, and Davis).
Celebration of Life ceremonies for Web will be held in Minneapolis and Seattle next spring and summer. The Minneapolis celebration will be held at Lakewood Cemetery at 12:00 on May 21, 2027, with a celebratory service at Lakewood’s Memorial Chapel and a reception immediately following at Lakewood’s Flower Garden reception building. The Seattle celebration will be held early summer 2027.
3 Responses to “Webster “Hutch” Hutchins”
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Web was such a good friend and teammate. I met him in Madison and hit it off as buddies pretty fast and shared our love of lacrosse and had many history classes together. Like a brother, we could tell stories and laugh till tears. So glad I got to spend time with him at our last UW reunion. My deepest condolences to his family.
I knew Web for almost 40 years. He loved fishing. We spent countless hours on the lacrosse fields, on the rivers, in boats, in bars, at clubs, and at concerts. Did I mention he loved fishing? He also loved his students, his teammates, books, learning, fishing, lacrosse, activism and friendship. In fact, there are few people as deep and connected to the world as Web was. I will miss him dearly. I hope his epitaph reads, “Gone fishing.” I love you Web!
I staffed the Career Center at South Lake High School, an alternative school in the Rainier Beach neighborhood, renamed “Alan T Sugiyama High School” in the 2010’s.
I had the pleasure of being across the hall from “Web” during his one year at South Lake, which unfortunately was not a pleasant year for him. The administration made his tenure very challenging from day one. – They entered his classroom repeatedly to “observe” him.
I thought Web did a GREAT job! He was interested in getting his students engaged with civics, indeed LIFE! Had he been allowed to take students to Olympia, as he wanted to do and show them how our Washington State government works, or not, his students would have expanded their very limited view of the world. Web had GREAT rapport with his students.
Unfortunately I lost contact with Web shortly after he left South Lake. I am pleased to see that he continued his teaching career, possibly at Nathan Hale High School(?), after he left South Lake.
I hope he was appreciated and treated better there.
Thank you for providing a detailed obituary for Web Hutchins.
I would like to know when Web’s Celebration of Life will be held in Seattle, next spring.