Hilo civic leader, former state senator Richard Henderson dies at 97

Richard “Scotchy” Henderson, the Hilo businessman who helped steer theaters, radio stations and cable ventures while serving 14 years in the state Senate, died April 25 at age 97.

His death closes the life of a man whose influence ran through both the public and private machinery of modern Hilo. Born in Hilo on Dec. 20, 1928, Henderson graduated from Punahou School in 1946 and earned a B.S. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1950 before returning to the Big Island.

After coming back to Hilo in 1951, he worked as a certified public accountant for eight years and then joined Realty Investment Co. He became president and general manager in 1968, a post that placed him at the center of a business network that extended far beyond a single company. Biographical records show he helped lead or build nine theaters, an insurance agency, a wireless phone company, several car dealerships, Comtec Cable Co., and the KPUA and KWXX radio stations.

That business base fed directly into public service. Henderson was elected as a Republican to the state Senate in 1970, served through 1978, returned in 1981 and remained there through 1987. A later summary lists him as Senate minority leader from 1983 to 1987. A University of Hawaii political history project also interviewed him in 1988, preserving the outlook of a Big Island Republican businessman who said he prized an independent philosophy.

Henderson’s family remembered him as someone who listened more than he spoke and tried to act in the community’s best interests. His son said Henderson was still coming into the office until age 95, and when oxygen became necessary about two years before his death, he moved his office to the kitchen table rather than step away from work.

That endurance was recognized in 2011, when Junior Achievement of Hawaii inducted him into its Business Hall of Fame at the Hale Koa Hotel in Honolulu alongside John Morgan, Robert Taylor and Shelley Wilson. For Hilo, Henderson’s legacy is tied to the institutions he helped shape and the public decisions he influenced, from boardroom deals to Senate debates. His death marks the passing of one of the last figures who bridged the island’s postwar business expansion and its modern political era.