EASTON, MARYLAND — Harry Roe Hughes’s Easton birth hits 100 years on Nov. 13, 2026 — and the Maryland State Archives still fix that Nov. 13, 1926, record in Talbot County.

The Archives governor biography walks the Caroline County path that followed: Caroline County public schools and Caroline High School in Denton, Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, U.S. Navy Air Corps service in World War II, then Mount St. Mary’s College, a University of Maryland B.S. in 1949, and a George Washington University School of Law LL.B. in 1952. Admitted to the Maryland Bar that same year, he practiced as an attorney.

MSA records a Caroline County House of Delegates term from 1955 to 1959, then a Senate career from 1959 to 1970 — representing Caroline County and later District 15, with majority-leader years from 1965 to 1970 — before he served as secretary of transportation from April 1, 1971, to May 26, 1977. The same page names him Maryland’s Democratic governor from Jan. 17, 1979, to Jan. 21, 1987, and records his death in Denton on March 13, 2019. The Talbot County chronology in the Maryland Manual repeats the Easton birth line for Nov. 13, 1926.

MSA also notes that the Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology in Queenstown was named for him on Nov. 13, 2006 — a prior birthday marker on the Shore that now sits beside the approaching centennial of the Easton birth date. The biography lists marriage to Patricia Donoho, who died Jan. 20, 2010, and names him author of the 2006 autobiography My Unexpected Journey.