A program sheet of the memorial service held by the family of Charles Hosch, an SMU professor and Dallas attorney who went missing last fall during a hike in Georgia, on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026 at University Park United Methodist Church in Dallas.
Shafkat Anowar/The Dallas Morning News
Hymns echoed through University Park Methodist Church’s chapel Saturday as over a hundred family members, friends and loved ones filled the pews to remember Charles Hosch, a Southern Methodist University professor and Dallas attorney who disappeared nearly a year ago.
Seated in the front, his daughters Julia and Mary Catherine Hosch, and wife, Beth Hosch, solemnly smiled and occasionally wiped tears from their faces as the songs, prayers and scripture readings shifted into recounts of Hosch’s impact on peoples’ lives.
“He had an insatiable curiosity for people who were different and believed exploring and learning about others made him wiser and more human,” remarked Kevin Higgins, who attended Harvard University with Hosch.
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“He contained multitudes,” the church’s senior pastor the Rev. Joe Stobaugh said. “He was accomplished, driven, but also, beautifully, wonderfully human.”
Hosch, 67, had gone for a hike on part of the Appalachian Trail in northern Georgia, where he was last seen descending Blood Mountain on Nov. 11, 2025. The winding trail extends almost 2,200 miles through 14 states.
Hosch was a Gainesville, Ga., native, Julia Hosch said, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to hike the trail alone, as it was as familiar to him.
As the one-year anniversary of his disappearance approaches, he has yet to be found, Julia Hosch said. In his obituary published earlier this month, his family wrote he’s presumed to have died.
“That of course leaves us with so very many questions for which we do not have answers,” Stobaugh said. “But what I need to tell you today, is that there was never a time, a place, [or] a situation where God was not already with Charles.”
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“He was lost to us, but Charles was never lost to God.”
Related: Amid search for missing SMU professor, attorney, family emphasize hiking safety
Blue and yellow stained glass windows lined the rooms of the church’s reception hall, where dozens of vases filled with bouquets of white roses and greenery were dedicated to Hosch. The service was livestreamed, and an overflow room had been prepared for the many expected to attend.
After the service, some people lined up to greet the family, while others stopped to admire a table laid with mementos from Hosch’s life. Among them was a collection of faux Rolex watches seized during a raid in the 1980s, a watercolor portrait of him in a reading chair and an album of pictures from his wedding day.
Attendees leave following a memorial service held by the family of Charles Hosch, an SMU professor and Dallas attorney who went missing last fall during a hike in Georgia, on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026 at University Park United Methodist Church in Dallas.
Shafkat Anowar/The Dallas Morning News
Since his disappearance, the family and multiple rescue agencies have held large-scale search operations throughout the area. On Nov. 25, they launched the Bring Charles Home website and Facebook page, dedicated to documenting search updates and collecting stories about his life.
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“While we may not know where he lies, we know exactly — with full and complete confidence — that we will see him again,” Julia Hosch said as she addressed the crowd Saturday, her voice wavering. Her husband, Aditya Singh, stood behind her, rubbing her back as she spoke.
There were few things her father loved more than a good story, Julia Hosch said, and before his disappearance he’d written a list of over 1,000 he wanted to make into a book. She asked that anyone with a story to tell about Hosch send it to julia@bringcharleshome.com as the family works to create the book in his honor.
Related: Family, friends keep search alive for SMU professor who disappeared in Georgia
Hosch was a graduate of Harvard Law School and taught classes at SMU’s Dedman School of Law. He also spent nearly 30 years teaching Sunday school at the church.
Hosch began his career as an antitrust lawyer at Strasburger & Price, LLP, where he spent 35 years focused on competition cases, before he branched into an entrepreneurial role as co-founder of the former law firm Hosch & Morris PLLC.
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Kate Morris, his friend and business partner at Hosch & Morris, told The Dallas Morning News in May she had closed the firm “as Charles’s disappearance made continuing very difficult.” A notepad and business card with their firm’s name sat alongside a map of Georgia’s Appalachian Trail on the table of mementos.
Morris has since moved to Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal, LLP, and said she’s committed to carrying Charles’s legacy forward. During the service, she read the Litany of Remembrance prayer.
After each line, the crowd responded, “we remember them.”
According to his obituary, donations in his memory can be made to the church’s Charles Martin Hosch Memorial Fund or to the SMU Bar Association Fund in Charles’s name at smu.edu/hosch.
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“Notably, this fund will include an explicit provision that professors may use it to buy cookies for class,” his obituary reads.