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!