Plaque, wall dedicated to late Greensburg Fire Chief J. Edward Hutchinson

Longtime Greensburg Aerobics Center General Manager Marianne Bucci Anzovino has no hesitation telling anyone within earshot that without late city fire chief J. Edward “Hutch” Hutchinson, the aerobics center at Lynch Field never would have been built.

On Saturday, Hutchinson’s family, firefighters and aerobics center staff members gathered outside the center to dedicate a bronze plaque with the late chief’s likeness embedded in a stone wall honoring the renowned community leader who died April 15, 2018 at age 96.

“Hutch really did this for the entire community in 1978. This was his baby,” Anzovino said.

“Because of his dream — that is the reason we’re 42-years-old.”

Hutchinson was fire chief for 63 years.

Anzovino said early 1978, Hutch and a group of city firefighters travelled to Dallas, Texas to visit Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper, the renowned “Father of Aerobics” and visit his aerobics center there. Hutchinson was always concerned about the conditioning of firefighters.

“He came back and said we’ve got to get an aerobics center, and like Ed did, he went out and got it done,” she said.

The center initially opened in a one-room, 40-by-80-foot log cabin. Since Anzovino came aboard in 1987, there have been seven additions — including a swimming pool — and it’s now 24,000 square feet.

None of it would have happened without Hutchinson, she said. First responders continue to work out at the facility to this today.

“I can tell you: he was in here every day, too. And it just made his heart feel good when he would see people with joint replacements, recuperating from heart surgery, people with walkers, kids with Down syndrome, come in to use the facilities and pool,” she said.

Anzovino said the plaque and wall were built with community donations.

“We’re very, very proud of it,” she said. “And I know he was there, too, saying, ‘What are all of you doing outside doing this for. … You should all be inside working out.’”

“We’re very proud how it turned out,” Anzovino said. “There was not another man like him in the world.”