WESTPORT ISLAND – Robert David Hughes of Westport Island, died Thursday, Sept. 7, surrounded by his family, after a brief and courageous battle with lung cancer.

Bob was born in Boston in 1941, attended Thayer Academy, Tufts University and Georgetown Law Center.

He strove to achieve a life committed to nobility. The ideal began at Camp O-AT-KA in Maine, where Sir Galahad was his role model. He met his wife there 46 years ago. They moved to Chicago in 1964, where he became a partner at A.C. Babize & Co., a brokerage agency.

Both he and Jeannine became Baha’is in 1972, and Abdu’l Bah, son of the prophet-founder of the Bah’ Faith, replaced Galahad as his role model for nobility. In 1974, he merged his firm with Alexander & Alexander, an international brokerage, where in 1985, he became managing vice president of the Chicago office. In 1975, he took leave of A&A to become the administrative head of the National Bah’ Center in Wilmette, Ill.

He helped set up Y-Mutual to provide insurance for YMCAs nationwide. After moving to Maine in 1992, he served the Boothbay Region YMCA as president of the board of trustees and CVO in 2000, finding an opportunity to serve the noble principles of the YMCA.

Survivors include his wife Jeannine; his children, Rebecca A. Tran, Carson Robert Hughes, Matthew Rahmat Hughes and Eric Sharaf Hughes; and sisters, Patience Johnson and Joan Hatfield.