Sam Wright

The Reverend Sam Wright, whose love of wilderness and lifelong interest in the ecology of plants and people led him to a life of study and activism in northern Alaska, died on 24 July 2016 at the age of 97.

Samuel Anthony Wright, Jr., was born on 13 June 1919 in a mining camp in Hurley, New Mexico. He studied biology at the University of New Mexico while concurrently working on the Manhattan Project and teaching genetics at University of El Paso (TX). In 1948 he moved with his spouse Jean and three young children to Cloverdale, California, where he served a weekend ministry at the First Congregational Church and spent weekdays in Berkeley for ministerial study at Starr King School.

In 1950 Mr. Wright received his B.D., accepted a call to the Unitarian Church of Stockton (CA), and was ordained there the same year. He left that pulpit in 1952 to direct the American Unitarian Association’s youth program, during which time he wrote the hymn text, “We Would Be One.” Called back to parish ministry in 1954 at the Marin Fellowship of Unitarians in San Rafael (CA), he served there until 1961 and then joined the core faculty at Starr King. Sam spent a 1968 sabbatical hiking in Alaska and soon resigned his position at Starr King for a move to wild Alaska.

He helped establish UU fellowships in Anchorage and Fairbanks, and served interim ministries in San Antonio, Long Beach, Tulsa, Palo Alto, Fresno, Auburn (CA), Reno (NV). After a return to the Marin Fellowship, he was named minister emeritus there in 1989. But summers always meant retreat to his Alaska cabin for reconnection and renewal.

Sam Wright is survived by his third spouse, Donna Lee, four children, Patricia, Chip, Roberta, and Bill, plus stepchildren, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.