Daughter of Prominent Newport Pastor Dies at 23

Suzanne Marie Huffman, the daughter of a prominent Newport Beach pastor, has died of Hodgkin’s disease after battling the illness for 20 months. She was 23.

Huffman graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1990 and was an avid athlete, playing on championship volleyball teams in college and at Newport Harbor High School. The cancer was diagnosed during her senior year at Princeton.

Last May, her father, the Rev. John Huffman Jr., withdrew his candidacy for moderator of the Presbyterian Church’s General Assembly because of his daughter’s condition. Huffman has been pastor of the 4,500-member St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach since 1978.

At Princeton, Suzanne Huffman not only excelled in athletics, but distinguished herself academically as a history major. She specialized in women’s studies with a senior thesis titled: “Moral Gatekeepers of the Nation: The Radicalization of Conservative Christian Women in Politics.”

She is survived by two sisters, Carla and Janet, her father and her mother, Anne Huffman.

A memorial service will be conducted at 2 p.m. Monday at Community Presbyterian Church, 415 Forest Ave., Laguna Beach. There will be no public viewing.

Memorial gifts may be directed to Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation, P.O. Box 1076, Orange, Calif. 92668-0076, or to Memorial Senior Thesis Prize in Women’s Studies to be awarded by Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 08540.