By Grant Abston, Sports Editor
Dr. Royce Money surveyed the room, and offered Bob Hunter a challenge: name every person in the room. Hunter and Money were in Austin for a conference and were surrounded by 30 people connected to higher education. Hunter stood up, scanned the room and proceeded to name every person present.
“He stumbled on one and then got it right,” said Money, president of ACU. “These were people who did not necessarily have an ACU connection. They were educational leaders from all over the state, and he knew every one of them, it’s a gift of God.”
After nearly a 60-year relationship with ACU, Dr. Bob Hunter is easily one of the most recognizable faces on campus, known by faculty, students and thousands of alumni. Not only has Hunter had a tremendous impact on ACU, the university has meant as much to Hunter as he has to the Abilene Christian community. As a tribute to Hunter, ACU will name its new welcome center the Bob and Shirley Hunter Welcome Center. The center will greet thousands of prospective students and their families, ACU alumni and other friends each year, as well as provide meeting spaces for campus groups and the Abilene community.
“Not only does he know everybody’s name, but he knows where they live and where they are from,” said Charlene Rickets, Hunter’s administrative secretary for 36 years. “If he can’t think of their name, he tells me all about the person.”
From California to Texas
Hunter was born in Dodge City, Kan., the 10th of 12 children. Hunter and his family moved to California, where he graduated from San Mateo High School. After graduating high school, Hunter’s future took a turn after he heard former ACC president Jesse P. Sewell preach at the 17th Street Church of Christ in San Francisco in 1946. Hunter had $1,000 saved and had no intentions of attending college, but after hearing Sewell talk about ACC, Hunter and two friends decided to attend the university. Hunter’s dad worked for the Santa Fe Railroad Company and got Hunter a ticket for Abilene.
“It was early in the morning, around 5 o’ clock, and I went a couple of blocks to grab some breakfast, and someone greeted me,” Hunter said upon his arrival to Abilene. “I thought they were talking to someone behind me, and I was amazed that they were talking to me; it showed me how friendly Texas was.”
Hunter enrolled in Abilene Christian College in 1948 and jumped right in, becoming vice president of the freshman class, singing in the A Cappella chorus and immediately beginning to develop friendships. Hunter had such a great time his freshman year, he decided to come back, joining the student council, and becoming president of Frater Sodalis, president of the California Club, president of the men’s A Club and vice president of the student body before graduating in 1952.
After graduating, Hunter attended the University of Texas Law School, but his draft number came up after his first year of law school, sending him to the U.S. Naval Officers Candidate School in Rhode Island. After training, Hunter was sent to Japan and became an aide to two different admirals aboard two different aircraft carriers, the USS Midway and the USS Oriskny. While traveling throughout the Pacific, Hunter landed in Thailand where he met up with Wayne Long. Long, a professor at Kings University and an elder at the University Church of Christ in Austin, had a daughter named Shirley whom Hunter had met at the University of Texas. After graduation, Shirley came to Thailand to be with her parents, but Hunter took advantage of Shirley’s arrival and asked her to marry him in 1954.
“We were married in Bangkok, Thailand, but there was no Church of Christ,” Hunter said. “We were married at a Presbyterian church, and the commanding general and all the military force came to the wedding in addition to our Thai friends.”
Red, White, (Purple) and Blue
After his tour of duty, Hunter returned to Washington D.C. to serve with the Naval Security Office where he performed security briefings at the Pentagon. But despite his obligations to the military, ACC came calling in 1955. Don H. Morris, president of the university, asked Hunter to arrange an alumni party in D.C. At the party, Morris and John Stevens asked Hunter to come back to ACC to serve as the college’s director of special events. Hunter accepted the invite and returned to the university in September of 1956, where he immediately began to make his imprint on the university.
In 1957, Hunter organized the first Sing Song, assuming the role as sponsor and coordinator for the first six years. Because of the lack of space, Sing Song moved from Sewell Theatre to Abilene High School, then to the Civic Center before landing in Moody Coliseum after it was completed in 1968. In addition to starting Sing Song, Hunter also was the founder of the first Homecoming Musical, the Wizard of Oz, directed by Lewis Fulks. He coordinated the event for the first six years.
“[Sing Song] became a great tradition, and I’ve been very, very grateful that students wanted to keep it going because it meant so much to them,” Hunter said.
Hunter went on to establish some other well-known traditions at ACU before serving the Independent Colleges and Universities of Texas (ICUT) as executive vice-president and creating the Golden Anniversary Club, Freshman Follies and the Homecoming Parade. He helped reorganize Trojans and Phi Delta Psi, sponsored and helped start Galaxy and Kinsmen, planted the idea for summer camps, helped establish the President’s Circle, as well as organized the Parade of Flags.
However in 1986, Hunter was asked by the local Republican party-group to run for a seat in the House of Representatives, becoming the first Republican ever to serve from Taylor County; he would serve for the next 20 years.
Before his election, Hunter served on the Abilene City Council from 1970-73. During his term, Hunter worked to increase funding and get tuition equalization grants so that any student attending a private university in Texas could apply for and benefit from grants. While working with ICUT, Hunter became the father of that grant, coordinating the initial passage of the Texas Tuition Equalization Grant in 1971. For the fiscal year of 2007, ACU received $3,595,455 out of the $105.9 million appropriated by Legislature for the TEG program. To this day, the TEG has awarded several billion dollars to families who qualify for financial aid and helped more than 25,000 low and middle-income students attend independent colleges and universities in Texas every year.
“People knew that if they did not vote for the TEG, they would have to give Dr. Hunter a good reason,” said Sherri Statler, president of Christian Homes and Family Services in Abilene and coordinator for Hunter’s state legislature campaigns. “I love the fact that he was a champion at that, and that was one thing that I truly appreciated about him.”
Hunter was re-elected in ten succeeding general elections while running against three different opponents. He worked on the Joint Selection Committee of the House and Senate to study higher education issues in Texas in 1992. Hunter also served as the chair of the House Committee on State, Federal and International Relations from 1993-2003 and co-chaired the Special House Select Committee on NAFTA and GATT (General Agreements on Tariffs and Trades). In 1998, Hunter was named president emeritus of ICUT and in 2006, Hunter completed his 10th term as State Representative, serving as chair of the House Research Organization, vice chair of the House Committee for Regulated Industries and a member of the House Committee on Government Reform.
The Smiling Servant
After nearly 52 years of service to ACU, Hunter now serves as the Vice President Emeritus and the Special Assistant to the President, assisting Money in any way possible and representing ACU in different ceremonies and events when Money is unable to be present. Despite his devotion to ACU, Hunter’s efforts on behalf of private higher education throughout Texas have not gone unnoticed, especially his work for the TEG. He has received seven honorary doctorate degrees from ACU, Pepperdine University, Texas Wesleyan University, St. Thomas University, McMurry University, Hardin-Simmons University and Austin College, earning him the name Dr. Bob Hunter.
“When I came back from Pepperdine, John Stevens declared that I would be Dr. Bob Hunter, so I haven’t been able to escape the title since,” Hunter said.
While Hunter’s efforts in higher education and contributions to ACU can hardly be put in words, his friendship and leadership have defined him.
“He’s incredibly generous as a mentor and so much of what I know of fundraising and friend making I learned from Dr. Hunter,” Statler said. “He has really dedicated his life to making friends for the university.”
Hunter’s dedication will be recognized by the university with the naming of the new welcome center.
“As Bob neared his retirement, we were looking for something to honor Bob and the building emerged at the same time,” Money said. “This honoring of Bob and Shirley has been very popular among community leaders in Abilene.”
Not only is the honor appropriate, Ricketts sees the irony in the honor.
“He’s been very humble about it, and he keeps saying that they should have named it after somebody else, but I think he was really surprised when they announced it,” Ricketts said. “He is deserving because he is the ultimate welcomer.”
While Hunter nears retirement, his imprint on ACU is clear. Not only has Hunter contributed many of the ideas that have helped define ACU, he has established lifelong friendships with anyone that comes into contact with him.
Many agree with legendary golfer Byron Nelson who spoke of Hunter, while thanking all who had participated in organizing a tribute dinner for him and his wife Louise to raise funds for the Byron and Louise Nelson golf Endowment Fund at ACU in May of 1984.
“I walked into a church once when I was visiting in New York City, and lo and behold, there’s Bob sitting there,” Nelson said. “I thought to myself, ‘No matter where you go, you just can’t get away from Bob Hunter.'”
