08/01/00
This autobiographical summary was
written at the behest of my children. It's the short
version, as I don't see myself ever
completing the unabridged account. This isn't the
stuff that inspires prime time sitcoms and
probably won't be of interest to most. I
certainly hope it doesn't sum up the extent
of these last forty-some-odd years. Maybe
a hundred years from now a descendant will
say, "I'm glad we got something from him..."
I was born January 26, 1951 in Long
Beach, California to Father Leon Richard Hunt of Bazine,
Kansas and Mother Beth (Carroll) Hunt of
Fillmore, Utah. I am the oldest of three siblings,
Steven Leon, Roger Michael and Kathryn
Irene. I was raised in a modest rambler located in
the suburbs of Garden Grove where I attended
Stanford Elementary School. My parents later
purchased a new, two-story colonial house at
the end of a culdesac in a development named
Anawood located at 1780 Goodhue Ave. in
Anaheim, just a few miles from Disneyland. It was
here that I attended F. S. Key Elementary,
Trident Junior High and Loara High Schools where
I played the coronet in the band and
orchestra, was a full back and slot end on the football
team, ran the 660, 880 and 2 mile on the
track and cross-country teams, and was an honor roll
student. From the time I was fifteen I
also played guitar and wrote songs. This probably
had something to do with the demise of my
horn career.
At sixteen I began working for
Market Basket as a box boy, after school and weekends. I was
able to purchase my first car, a
1966 Volkswagen Beetle, soon after. In addition to my
school activities I enjoyed surfing
and snorkling and spent much of my free time at the
beaches along the Southern California coast
line.
Upon graduating from High School in
1969, I attended, nearby, Cypress College where I majored
in Psychology. I was promoted
to Sundries Clerk at Market Basket. I was eligible for the
military draft under the lottery
system and did get as close as the Induction Center in Los
Angeles, but my number was not
selected and I was excluded from the fighting in Vietnam.
In the summer of 1970 I quit my job
of four years and traveled the coast on a ten-speed
bicycle with my friend Tom Tedeski. We
camped along the way, the highlight of the trip being
two or three days in the back country at Big
Sur (Ventana Wilderness Area). The highlight
may have have been a "toss up" for me as I
also spent a memorable time, 2 or three days, in a
"Rescue Misssion" in San Jose when Tom and I
were seperated. We spent a few months, peddling
700 miles and got as far as Sacramento where
we took a jet home.
After returning from the bicycle
trip, I was encouraged by my minister, Jerry Hackett, to
consider moving to Lodi, California--just
south of Sacramento, where he had just accepted a
position with The First Baptist Church.
I moved there and began working with the church youth
group. I also enrolled in San Joaquin
Delta College in nearby Stockton where I wrote for the
College paper. It was here that I
married Cathy Salem and my son James Douglas was born on
July 23, 1972. I was unable to find
full-time work and soon found it difficult to make ends
meet; so we moved to Anaheim where I aquired
a job at Kwikset Locksets, in the Receiving
Department.
In the Spring of 1974 my parents
purchased a fishing resort, Lundy Lake Oxbow Ranch, near Lee
Vining on the east side of the
California Sierra Nevada mountain range. The resort was at
7600 feet elevation on the site of
a ghost town, Lundy, that had supported the Mae Lundy gold
mine at the turn of the
century. My parents invited me to come to work for them. As I
had
seperated from my
wife, James and I came alone. By the summer the whole family had
gathered
in this
idyllic mountain setting. It was a great homecoming. That summer
welded our
relationships. Thirty-five years later we share the same
closeness.
By the end of October I had to move
back to Southern California to find work. After a short
time in the Malibu hills on a
six-acre ranch with a beautiful ocean vista, we moved to Mar
Vista, near Venice, and I went to
work for Intermagnetics of Santa Monica, an audio tape
manufacturer, as a production
supervisor. Because of my experience here, I was recruited
by
a "start-up"
company, Mountain States Tape Industry, in Provo, Utah. We moved in with
Aunt
Carla (Carroll)
McCormick in the Spring of 1976 and within a few weeks found a
three-bedroom
house,
on the outskirts of Springville, which we rented. Judy Lyne Spitzer and I were
married
that summer
but by the following Spring the marraige dissolved as did the tape
business. I
had
an opportunity to work in Ireland, but decided that with James beginning
kindergarten in
the
fall, it was time to settle down.
My brother, Steve, had decided to
move to Utah and we rented an old house in Payson. He got
a job with the U.S. Forest Service,
working on some of the dam projects in the area. After
working at odd jobs for a few
months, my uncle Lee Carroll was able to get me a job on the
transportation crew of the Osmond
movie production, "The Great Brain". I had a "bit"
speaking part (which was later cut) and did
the assistant directing for the second unit work
in St. George. This work lead to a job
as limosine driver for the "Donny & Marie Show", a
popular ABC variety show produced by the
Osmond Studios in Orem. I was responsible for
hosting the guest stars each week.
Before the next season, the show was cancelled and it was
time for me to find a "real"
job. On April 13, 1978 I began working for Valtek, a control
valve manufacturer in Springville,
as a Shipping Clerk.
I bought my first home, an old
"fixer-upper", near the Peteetneet School in Payson. Steve
decided to return to school and
moved to Logan where he attended Utah State College. I then
married Madgy Leone Pecha and
adopted my son, Douglas Levi who was born November 21, 1977.
We purchased a newer split-level
home in 1980. On June 21, 1981 my daughter Leah Anne was
born. I now supervised the Final
Production Services Department at Valtek which included,
Final Assembly Planning, Customer Service and
Shipping. In 1983 Madgy and I seperated, and
James and I moved to a duplex which I rented
for a short time until I was able to purchase a
mobile home on the west side of town, near
the ball park.
In May of 1985 I first met Carolyn
Hodgson at an officer's installment ceremony for the
Fraternal Order Of Eagles, Spanish Fork
Aerie, where I had been elected Chaplain. It wasn't
long before she and her four
children, Matthew Jenz, Russell Adam, Jamie Christine and
Heather Jean became a part of my
family. Carolyn and I were married in the home of her
parents, Ray and Beulla Hodgson, in Spanish
Fork, Utah on May 1, 1987. In October of that
year we purchased a home in Genola, Utah,
where, as of this writing, we still happily reside.
A daughter, Tiffany Beth was born to us on
May 3, 1988. I now held the position of Office
Systems Manger at Valtek with responsibility
for information systems, network administration,
procedures and documentation management in
the Sales Department.
On June 16, 1996 I began work as
Operations Manager for a small manufacturer in Spanish Fork.
In May, 1997, my daughter, Heather
Jean, was adopted. I ran for Mayor of Genola, lost and
hung up my political "hat"
forever.
After my father's death in 1982, I
had taken up his genealogical work and am now involved
more than ever. I've created an
Internet website, called the Homestead
<http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hunt/homestead>, that is
dedicated to genealogy
and also a mail list for the HUNT surname with a supporting
website
<http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hunt/list/>. In
April of 1999, I created the
"Loara Alumni.COM" <http://www/LoaraAlumni.com>, an alumni site
specifically for Loara High
School. After thirty years I was finally ready to attend my first
reunion and nobody
planned one. It's been a lot of fun reuniting with old friends in
cyber space. I don't
pick up the guitar much anymore--maybe at the occassional reunion, but
I've published some
of my poetry (songs) on the net at
<http://www.poets2000.com/doughunt/>. You may read
about
my early
childhood memories at
<http://www.poets2000.com/doughunt/books/earlymemories/>.
Mom's planning a 70th birthday bash
on a cruise to Mazatlan, Puerta Vallarta and
Cabo San Lucas in November, 2000 (her
treat!). It will be great to get everyone (siblings &
spouses) together for ten
days. I need a vacation!