John Richard Wright

Mr. John R. Wright, 92, of Brattleboro, Vermont, died Sunday, September 11, 2022 at Pine Heights Nursing Home, Brattleboro.

John Richard Wright was born at home in Rockford, Illinois, December 31, 1929, the son of Earnest and Eunice (Eno) Wright. He was a 1947 graduate of Freeport, Illinois, High School where he lettered in football and was president of his senior class.  John entered Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, in the fall of 1947. He was elected president of the student body in his senior year. John dropped out in the middle of that year to enlist in the United States Army during the Korean Conflict. He served as a counterintelligence special agent and was honorably discharged following three years of service.  John returned to Cornell to earn his Bachelor Degree in sociology in 1954.  He spent all of his high school and college summers as a staff member at various camps for boys and girls.

John met Mary C. A. Paulin a native of Tuners Falls, Massachusetts, in Iceland and the couple were married October 5, 1953, in Millbrook, Illinois.  Upon graduation from college, John went to work in Chicago as Export Advertising Manager for the Oliver Corporation, a manufacturer of farm machinery; and later as U.S. Advertising Manager for Pfaff Sewing Machine of Germany. From 1958 through 1970, he was a vice president/account supervisor at three different advertising agencies in Chicago.In 1970, John and Mary moved to Brattleboro where he managed a scholarship program for young Americans going abroad with The Experiment in International Living. He retired at age 65.  Mary predeceased John in 2015 (22,380 days after their wedding day).

During his 52 years in Brattleboro, John served two terms as Town Grand Juror; was a board member of 12 Clark Avenue, a group foster home for teenage girls; and on the board of the Boys and Girls Club. In his retirement years he was a very active volunteer at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital. For many years he worked at the polls on election day. John was also a longtime regular every-other-month Red Cross blood donor. In his later years he also regularly volunteered at the Vermont Foodbank.  His final act of service was that of a registered organ donor.

John will be interred with his wife, Mary in Lake Archibald at northern Oconto County,  Wisconsin, a place John and Mary dearly loved.  They were camp directors at a former boys and girls camp their the first summer of their marriage.  A rite of committal will be held with Raymond B. Ackerman, Jr., Funeral Director officiating.  

John hoped that those wishing to make memorial gifts would do so to the Windham County Humane Society, P.O. Box 397, Brattleboro, VT 05302.

Atamaniuk Funeral Home, Brattleboro and Ackerman Funeral Directors cared for the arrangements.