A memorial service is planned May 13 by Samford University to honor Dr. Mary Ann Hocutt, assistant professor of business. The memorial service will be at 11:15 a.m. in Reid Chapel on the Samford campus.

Dr. Hocutt, 56, was killed May 8 when she was struck by a truck on Interstate 459 in Birmingham. She had taught at Samford since 1998 and apparently was on her way to campus to teach a late morning class.

A memorial fund honoring Dr. Hocutt has been established by the Samford School of Business for the purpose of providing student scholarships. Anyone wishing to add to the Dr. Mary Ann Hocutt Memorial Fund should send contributions to: University Relations, Samford University, Birmingham, AL 35229. Make checks payable to Samford University, and specify that the contribution is for the Hocutt Fund.

School of business faculty and students were notified immediately of Dr. Hocutt’s death by Acting Dean Marlene Reed.

"The hardest thing I ever have done was telling the faculty, secretaries and students," Reed said. "It’s a great loss. She was a good teacher, and we will miss her."

The University community was notified by Provost J. Bradley Creed. “We all mourn the loss of this member of the Samford family and offer our prayers for and sympathy to Dr. Hocutt's husband, Herb, other members of her family, and Dr. Hocutt's colleagues in the School of Business,” Creed said in a written statement.

Hocutt was to be part of a business school team leaving in two weeks to work with the Kiev Business School in the Ukraine.

Hocutt’s husband, Herb, had retired recently from Samford’s telecommunications department. Her daughter, Jessica Orso of Birmingham, a granddaughter, her mother and a brother also survive her.

A funeral service is scheduled for 11 a.m., May 11, at Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham.

 

Compiled from staff reports and the Birmingham News.