RICHARD 'IKE' SUTTON /
FORMER STATE REPRESENTATIVE

FILE PHOTO/1998
Richard "Ike" Sutton stood with the help of his wife, Anne,
on the Arizona Memorial in 1998 for the 3rd Marine Regiment
Rifle Detail during a commemorative ceremony
of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Isle politician
and Navy vet dies
at age 86

Sutton was a survivor of
the Pearl Harbor attack

OBITUARIES

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Craig Gima
cgima@starbulletin.com

Former state representative and Pearl Harbor survivor Richard "Ike" Sutton, 86, died yesterday afternoon at the St. Francis-West Hospice.

Sutton, a Republican, also ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives and lieutenant governor.

He represented the Nuuanu, Alewa Heights, Pauoa and Papakolea district from 1970 until 1982 and served as a delegate to the 1968 Constitutional Convention, said his son Warner "Kimo" Sutton.

"He tried to make Hawaii a better place to live," Warner Sutton said.

Sutton was better known as a businessman outside of politics.

Sutton attended Punahou School, and was a Stanford and Stanford Law School graduate. He was born April 5, 1915.

Sutton said his father was one of the first to campaign by waving signs at the side of the road in 1958, although his father used to tell him not to take credit for that because people might get upset.

Sutton was an ensign and assigned as the duty officer when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 and helped rescue some of the victims of the attack.

In 1999, Richard Sutton told the Star-Bulletin that he has attended every ceremony held at Pearl Harbor except for when he studied on the mainland. And every time he feels the pain. "It's awful sad," he said. "I saw so many killed."

Sutton told of his experiences during a Dec. 7 commemoration in 1997.

"We saw these planes, then these things that looked like torpedoes heading for Battleship Row," said Sutton, who was on a small boat at the time. "I just went out into the middle of the harbor and started pulling people out of the water."

His father, E. White Sutton, served as a deputy attorney general for the Territory of Hawaii and was a former president of the Bishop Trust Co.

Sutton, who was born in Honolulu, is survived by his wife Anne Mary, sons Warner and Richard C. Jr., daughters Beverly Toomey and Linda Kemp, and four grandchildren.

Services are pending.