Bundles of Experience as an MVP for OCH

Bundles of Experience as an MVP for OCH

Bundles Murdock secretary for the OCH from 1990 until 2004.

By Roger Pearson

For many, Bundles Murdock is the face of Orange County Hounds (OCH). She checks members in at meets, she greets visitors, gets releases signed, and accepts capping fees. However, there is so much more to her than that.

She’s the fourth generation of her family to live in the Middleburg area and involved in fox hunting. Her great-grandmother, Mrs. Harris Hulbert, and her grandfather, William P. “Pappy” Hulbert, Sr., came here in 1912 from Cincinnati specifically for the hunting. Bundles’ mother, Catherine Hulbert Harts, was field secretary for the OCH from 1990 until 2004. Bundles Murdock

Murdock began assisting her mother in 2000, and when Mrs. Harts retired, she officially took her place. After the death of the OCH’s long-time Honorary Secretary, Mary-South Hutchison, in 2013, Murdock was appointed to that position by the Board of Stewards.

Another of her essential duties is that of “road-whipping” in her vehicle. She’s gone to great lengths to protect OCH’s beloved hounds, even to the point of putting herself and her vehicle in danger.

Elsewhere, her late father, Lewis Murdock, was MFH of the Essex Fox Hounds in New Jersey for many years and considered an all-round sportsman. Essex was one of the greatest packs outside of Virginia.

Away from hunting, Murdock also had an interesting and multi-faceted life and career.

Born in New York City, she was educated there as well as in Switzerland and France. Fluent in French, she was brought up in Geneva, and began her business career there in 1967 as assistant to the manager at Smith Barney and Harris Upham.

Returning to New York in 1973, she began working at Tiffany & Company, selling in each department, then moved to the diamond office, eventually becoming lead buyer.

She also worked as a travel agent before joining the U.S. Department of State in 1981. Working in the office of protocol, she coordinated all state and official visits made by presidents, prime ministers and royals.

President Ronald Reagan appointed her Assistant Chief of Protocol, then Deputy Chief. She was presented the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award by Secretary George Shultz. She left State at the end of the Reagan Administration in January 1989.

Between 1989 and 1991, Murdock was on special assignment at the Embassy of Saudi Arabia, the Smithsonian Institute, the U.S. Economic Summit of 1990 (where she was assistant to Mrs. George H.W. Bush) and was Vice President at Hill & Knowlton, the Washington public relations firm.

In 1991, she was hired by the Embassy of Kuwait as special assistant to the Ambassador to the United States. He later became Minister of Oil and returned to Kuwait. She continued working for him privately until his death in 2012, handling his U.S. affairs.

Locally, she served on the Middleburg Town Council from 2004 until 2016 and was a board member and president of the Middleburg Community Center. She has has been on the Middleburg Planning Commission and still is on the Board of Zoning Appeals.

Murdock currently serves as vice president of The Blair House (The President’s Guest House) Restoration Fund in Washington, and as an advisory director of the National Sporting Library & Museum. She’s also an active real estate agent with TTR Sotheby’s in The Plains.

Bundles Murdock may be the face of the OCH, but clearly, there’s so much more.