By Joel Weckerly, Sports Editor
Visitors to State Representative Bob Hunter’s office in Austin’s capitol building find it hard to miss his elephants. After all, the room is filled with thousands of the tusked beasts-not real elephants, of course, but rather miniature models of every shape and size.
“My mother and father-in-law sent us a number of elephant replicas while they were in Thailand, so we already had a little collection,” recalls Hunter. “But then everybody thought I had to have another one. It got way out of hand, and now I couldn’t tell you how many thousands of them I have.”
What Hunter also didn’t say is how each one of those elephants came from a dear friend in his life whom he had somehow affected, and how that tally is entirely too large to estimate.
Hunter was born in 1928 in Dodge City, Kan., as the youngest of 10 children. His family soon moved to San Mateo, Calif., where he grew up and eventually graduated from San Mateo High School in 1947. In 1948, Hunter departed for Abilene Christian College, where he dove right in and became involved in everything he could. During his four years as an undergraduate, Hunter had an assortment of responsibilities, such as vice president of the student body, president of his social club, Frater Sodalis, manager of the Student Activities Center and singer in a college quartet.
Chancellor emeritus Dr. John C. Stevens first met Hunter when Stevens was the dean of students.
“He was a live wire,” Stevens said. “You had to brace yourself when he came into the office because you knew he had some big plan. He never seemed to run out of things to do; he never seemed tired.”
Even today, the 74-year-old ACU vice president emeritus hasn’t lost that enthusiasm for life. He walks with a quick step and a big smile, and his eyes seem to dance behind the frames of his glasses.
“He’s got an energy that’s incredible for a 74-year-old,” said Jake Hogan, 2002 graduate and Hunter’s administrative and legislative aide in Austin. “People call him ‘Smiling Bob’ because he’s always smiling everywhere he goes.”
Hunter’s wife, Shirley, has helped keep that smile on his face. The two met while they were students attending University Church of Christ. They continued dating as he entered law school at the University of Texas in the fall of 1952. But with the Korean War looming, Hunter joined the Navy after one semester at UT. He was stationed as a Naval officer in Japan, while Shirley joined her parents, who were living in Bangkok, Thailand.
Bob and Shirley married in 1954 in Bangkok and lived in Yokosuka, Japan, for two years as Bob served on two different aircraft carriers as an admiral’s aide. The Hunters soon headed back to the States as Bob finished up his last year in the Navy in Washington, D.C., and then took a post with the National Security Agency.
“It’s a good thing he married a good girl like Shirley,” Stevens said, “because she’s about the only person who could put up with his being away so much. He’s got a wonderful wife and a good family.”
Today, the Hunters have three children: Kent (ACU class of ’79), Carol Phillips (’81) and Les (’86), as well as three grandchildren. Hunter spends approximately four days a week in Abilene with Shirley, and the other three days in Austin doing legislative work. When in town, Hunter tries to help and support his wife, who is currently undergoing treatment for melanoma.
The Hunters didn’t start their family until after they moved back to Abilene in 1956, where he planned to complete his master’s degree (which he actually didn’t complete until 1976) while working for the university as director of Special Events. It was in this position and his next one, director of Alumni Relations, Hunter did the most for ACC.
Hunter is responsible for the tradition of the Homecoming musical, which he established and helped produce for the first six years of its existence. He also established the Parade of Flags and the Ceremony of Allegiance, which accur each year in Opening Chapel. In addition, Hunter started the Alumnus of the Year program and the President’s Circle program (1970), in which every campus donor of $1,000 or more is invited by the university president to be a guest at a special dinner.
Another significant Hunter contribution was his sponsorship of social clubs. While working for the Inter Social Club Council, he helped to establish Galaxy in 1956 and Kinsmen in 1968, and helped get Trojans and Sub T-16 started back up after lulls in their existence on campus. Hunter even came up with the ISCC Scholarship, which was awarded to the member of each social club with the highest grade point average.
“I always thought all clubs were great,” Hunter said. “A lot of people wondered if they were just for fun, and we started up the scholarship to help prove that clubs were focused on more than that.”
But in the ACU spectrum, Hunter is far better known for his 1957 establishment of Sing Song, a tradition that has grown tremendously in size and popularity to this day. His idea was sparked after ACC started being labeled “The Singing College,” a title that the late Coach Garvin Beauchamp and his 1950 Wildcat football team helped earn for the school.
“They sang everywhere they went,” Hunter said of the 11-0 squad that won the national championship. “We were ‘The Singing College,’ so it only made sense that we should have a Sing Song.”
Phyllis Wilson, director of the Office of Student Productions, came up with the Bob Hunter award in 2000, her first year in charge of Sing Song. In the same way the Jeannette Lipford award is given to a female, the Hunter award is given to a male who did a lot of behind-the-scenes work to help get the show on stage, and is presented after the Saturday night performance.
“We wanted to figure out a way to honor Bob,” Wilson, a good friend of Hunter’s, said. “Not only did he come up with this ingenious idea, but he has been a great supporter of Sing Song ever since it began. He’s real proud of the work ACU students do.”
But Hunter’s greatest sense of pride comes from arguably the most significant contribution of his career: the passing of the Texas Tuition Equalization Grant (TEG), for which Texas residents can apply to receive money to attend private colleges and universities in Texas.
As early as 1969, member schools from the Independent Colleges and Universities of Texas (ICUT) had tried to persuade some members of the legislature to carry the TEG bill, but were not successful. Stevens, who was by then ACC president, had a meeting with 40 other college presidents, and asked them if they would need someone to coordinate the TEG movement.
“I knew it would take a certain type of personality to do it,” Stevens said, “and I told them we had a man who could do it.”
Stevens gave Hunter, who was serving as Assistant to the President, a leave of absence to do the lobbying.
“It was a huge coordination task,” said Dr. Carol McDonald, current president of ICUT who has known Hunter for 25 years. “But he made sure the right trustees talked to the right people, and he got it passed. He was so thorough; he gave the TEG a really strong beginning.”
Texas was the sixth state to have a similar grant program, and today every state in the U.S. has something like it. When the TEG legislation passed in 1971, it had an appropriation of $1 million. By the time Hunter left ICUT in 1981, it had an appropriation of $12.9 million. Approximately 1,000 ACU students per year receive grants ranging from $500 up to $2,500 annually to help pay for tuition.
“That was his greatest single project in my opinion,” Stevens said. “It meant so much to private schools.”
Hunter returned from his leave of absence to take the post of vice president for development and public relations, followed by vice president of the university and lastly senior vice president. He said that throughout his career at Abilene Christian, he was asked to be president of several colleges, but he loved the school too much to leave.
“I got tired of my friends in higher education asking me why I was still at that little school in West Texas when they had been through several universities,” Hunter said. “I finally told them that (former ACU president and late) Don Morris told me I couldn’t get to Heaven from anywhere except Abilene, Texas.”
Hunter made the transition from higher education to politics in 1986, when legislator Gary Thompson resigned his seat as Representative for District 71. Hunter was elected in a special election, making him the first elected Republican to the House of Representatives from Taylor County.
Sixteen years later, Hunter is still in the same position, making him representative of approximately 140,000 citizens of Taylor and Nolan Counties. Hunter was elected to yet another term in 2002 after defeating Libertarian opponent George Schwappach, who took just 9 percent of the vote to Hunter’s 91 percent.
Hunter said he didn’t know how much longer he would do the job.
“It’s so time consuming and the work load is so large that it makes it hard to believe anyone could do it for more than a couple years,” he said, “but the satisfaction of helping people is rewarding. I suppose if I were not helping in this regard, I would be helping in the church or something else.”
But those close to him say Hunter is far from being retired.
“He’s always doing something and I couldn’t see him doing nothing,” Hogan said. “But he doesn’t do any of it because he has to; he does it because it’s his passion.”
Wilson echoed these thoughts.
“He has an exuberance for life that is unmatched,” she said. “Every once in a while he’ll find me and give me a pep talk or a hug if I need it. I know I could go to him if I needed help. I love him dearly.”
McDonald said his enthusiasm isn’t just an act, either.
“A lot of times you can tell when people are pitching something to you and being fake about it,” she said. “But you don’t ever get that feeling with Bob. His enthusiasm is persuasive yet authentic.”
Stevens said that Hunter has left an imprint on the ACU campus, but one of his more noble traits was leaving an imprint on people’s lives.
“My wife once said that Bob Hunter could be talking to three or four people in a room, but his eyes would catch those of anyone who comes in the door,” Stevens said. “He’s conscious of everyone around him, and he’s been a loyal friend. He has touched the hearts and minds of anyone who has ever been close to him.”
