Clarence W. Hewlett, a two-time New Hampshire state chess champion and former longtime USCF member, died in his home in Waynesboro, Virginia on August 6, 2006. He was born June 20, 1921 in Iowa City, Iowa and received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1942. He subsequently obtained a master's degree in mathematics from Columbia University in New York. Mr. Hewlett was an electrical engineer and computer circuit designer for General Electric, and held more than 20 patents for mechanical and electrical circuit designs. During World War II, he was an instrumentation designer on the Manhattan Project.

Mr. Hewlett won the New Hampshire state chess championship in 1966 and 1970, and was reported to have won a "brilliancy prize" at a New York state master's tournament. In his later life, he turned his attention to the game Othello. He participated in the Othello World Championship in Stockholm, Sweden in 1990, and was a tournament director at the 1989 Othello World Championship in Warsaw, Poland, and at the 1991 world championship in New York City. Before modern computers, Mr. Hewlett built an endgame analyzer with specially tuned circuit boards and hardware that, at the time, was the fastest solver of Othello endgames in the world.

Clarence W. Hewlett - May you rest in peace.

Obituary supplied by George Mirijanian, Massachusetts Chess Association