- Date Of Birth: November 2, 1934
- Date Of Death: November 7, 2012
- State: Florida
Seouhee “Sue” Hong, 78, died peacefully at her home on Nov. 7, 2012, with her two sons by her side. Born in Seoul, Korea, on Nov. 2, 1934, the oldest of Young Geun Kim and Wha Kyoung Chang’s five children, Sue was an accomplished track and field athlete, competing in qualifying competitions for the 1954 Olympics. She lived through the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula before and during WWII and survived the Korean War before emigrating to the U.S. in 1954 with the help of Baptist missionaries. Sue received her undergraduate degree in journalism from New York University and worked as a staff reporter and religion editor for the Orlando Sentinel-Star from 1972 to 1979. She later founded and published the Ameri-Asia News, a statewide newspaper for Florida’s Asian community. She was also a council member of Asian-Pacific American Heritage Council in the 1980s. In her retirement, Sue taught English to new immigrants in the Orlando area and later moved to the Destin, Fla., area to be close to her twin grandchildren, Kai and Rain. Sue enriched their lives, as she had through her professional and community work, teaching them her native language and traditional recipes. Sue is preceded in death by her husband, Theodore. She is survived by her two sons, John (Mary) Hong of Destin and Robert Hong of Tokyo, Japan; two sisters, Yung Ja of Lancaster, Pa., and Hae Ja of Branford, Conn.; two brothers, Joong Shick (Hei Soon), of Seoul, South Korea and Yoon Shick (Sarah) of Atlanta, Ga.; and her two grandchildren, Kai and Rain Hong.
