Necrology

Frederick “Rick” Petri '68

Feb. 10, 1946-Mar. 31, 2021

Frederick “Rick” Petri ’68 died on March 31, 2021, at his home in Uxbridge, Mass., with his family at his side. Born in Boston and raised in Weston, Mass., he came to Hamilton from the Belmont Hill School.

An art major and a member of Sigma Phi fraternity, Petri was elected to the Freshman Council in September 1964. As a junior, he was elected to the College’s Student Entertainment Committee. He devoted spring break of 1967 to a job at a ski resort in Aspen, Colo. His compensation? Free room and board along with discounted lift tickets.

Upon graduation, Petri joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Western Samoa for three years where he worked as a teacher. Following that assignment, he volunteered for a six-month special assignment in Fiji before returning to Western Samoa where, still with the Peace Corps, he was a training-staff administrator. By 1974, he had moved 60 miles east to American Samoa to work as a teacher trainer and materials developer for the U.S. Department of Education.

Three years later, Petri left government service, having been hired as the general manager of radio station WVUV-AM (“No. 1 in the South Pacific”) located in the American Samoan town of Leone. As he would recall in his 25th reunion yearbook, he did “just about everything,” including repairing the station’s transmitter under the guidance of an engineer at the other end of an emergency phone call.

From there Petri went into the insurance business in American Samoa’s capital, Pago Pago, first as a sales manager in 1984 and then as general manager two years later. Thereafter, he oversaw the local office of an American importer whose base of operations was Portland, Ore., before working for a shipping company for a couple of years.

During his residence in American Samoa, Petri gained, as he put it, “an understanding of the importance of getting involved.” He was a member of the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Navy League, as well as the Board of Higher Education. He served as an officer in several of these organizations. He also took the lead in organizing a foundation to fund a scholarship in memory of a Samoan professional baseball player.

Petri returned to Massachusetts, specifically to the town of Uxbridge, in 2006. Continuing his commitment to community service, he became active in the Uxbridge Rotary Club and served as president of the organization for a term early on, among other volunteer activities. The Uxbridge Rotary devoted itself to a variety of community projects, from financing air conditioning units for the community center, to providing the local fire department with thermal (heat-seeking) cameras to use to search for people trapped inside burning structures, to funding scholarships for college-bound graduates of area high schools. He took a hand in all of these service initiatives among numerous others.

In his essay for his 40th reunion yearbook, Petri observed that “Hamilton allowed me to experience or be flexible in many different situations.” His life seemed to be a perfect illustration of the wisdom of that observation.

In addition to his wife, Leuila, Petri is sur­vived by three siblings, including Daphne Petri K’72, his four children, and two grand­children.

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