Hugh Mulligan was the first to graduate from the newly opened Marlboro College, which was founded in 1946 on Potash Hill in Marlboro VT. Mulligan, like many of his fellow students, had returned from WWII and attended the college using money received from the GI Bill. While attending college he lived, with his wife, Brigid, in the house of then-Vermont Governor Ernest Gibson on Western Avenue. That house is known today as Solar Hill.
After graduating from Marlboro College Hugh then, while still on the GI Bill, simultaneously earned Master's Degrees from Harvard and Boston University. He worked as a reporter for the Associated Press and went on to interview John Steinbeck, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Hope, Bob Dole, Margaret Thatcher, John Glenn, Joe DiMaggio, the Shah of Iran and other world celebrities and politicians. He covered President Kennedy's visit to the Berlin Wall in 1963.
He retired from the AP in 2000, and passed away in 2008.
This is a production of the Brattleboro Historical Society.
Research Credit: Marlboro College Oral History project
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Pictured above: Hugh Mulligan 1981 at The Royal Wedding of Charles and Diane - courtesy Brattleboro Historical Society