HICKORY, N.C.,None — Photos of his family and the basketball teams he’s coached take up space on a bookcase. His walls are lined with awards and commendations. A shadow box with his patches, badges and handcuffs tell of his time with Hickory Police Department.
A copy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech is framed and mounted on a wall in his office at Catawba Valley Community College as the executive director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs.
Steve Hunt, 56, is a busy man.
Hunt is on a second career after spending his entire police career with the city of Hickory. He started out in patrol at 20 years old and ended up as the only African-American to retire as a lieutenant. He was 48 years old when he retired. His son, nephew and brother-in-law also are police officers, with the son and brother-in-law with the Hickory Police Department.
Hunt is a graduate of Lees-McRae College and is working on a graduate degree in strategic leadership from Mountain State University.
Hunt proudly displays photos of his family in his office and calls his wife, Sarah, his queen of 38 years. And one of the items most prominently displayed is a piece of wood with the words “I love you dad – 1985.” He tells how his son, Steven, wanted to give him a father’s day gift but he was only in third grade so he wasn’t making money. The enterprising boy found the right piece of wood and burned the words into it using a magnifying glass and the sun. It took him most of a day to do it, Hunt said. He’s told his son that it’s a gift he would have in his office even if he were president of the US. Hunt and his wife have another son, William, and a daughter, Muriel, and six granddaughters.
He is a long-time Rotary member and a two-time Paul Harris Fellow, a deacon at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, on the board of trustees for Lenoir-Rhyne University, board of directors of BB&T, United Arts Council, American Red Cross and the board of commissioners for Hickory Public Housing Authority.
Hunt knows a thing or two about Hickory Public Housing. His life today is a far cry from where he came.
On the occasions when he’s visited his childhood neighborhood, “It makes me want to pinch myself,” Hunt said, tearing up.
Some might say Hunt defied the odds of a boy who grew up in the housing projects along NC 127 in Hickory.
“I was in the projects but the projects were not in me,” Hunt said.
His grandmother lived with the family of nine children and their mother. While his mother worked two jobs, grandma was there, along with the other parents in the neighborhood who kept an eye out on more children than their own. His neighborhood was the epitome of “It takes a village,” Hunt said.
If he got in trouble with someone else’s parent in the neighborhood, he was sure to get another dose of discipline when he got home.
Hunt jokes that his grandmother invented GPS, saying if she threw something at him as he was running the item seemed to follow him even as he rounded a curve.
While he now lives in the Viewmont area of Hickory, Hunt said Ridgeview will always be home.
From a very early age — 5 or 6 years old — he wanted to be a police officer. But he never saw police officers in a positive light because they were always in enforcement mode when he saw them.
But that changed as he got older and started working with his mother and siblings in the kitchen of Howard Johnson’s Restaurant and he would see officers come in to eat.
When he would tell his friends as an older teenager that he wanted to be a police officer, they would tell him the closest he would ever get is riding in the back of a police car. He says his friends who told him that are still where they were, they are just 30 years older.
“It’s all about surrounding yourself with people who are going somewhere,” Hunt said. “I didn’t realize that until I got a little older. That’s what I try to tell young people today.”
In his job and his life he seems to push young folks to achieve because his own life is a testament of what’s possible.
In his job with the multicultural affairs office at CVCC, his job and that of his staff is to remove any obstacles that stand in a student’s way to success. If they hit a hurdle to attaining an education they might not return. Many, Hunt explained, are first-generation students who don’t know the ins and outs of college such as needing a student identification or help with getting tax information for financial aid.
Some students don’t do well in large crowds so the office offers up its space for students to prepare presentations or work on homework.
The college has the only multicultural affairs office within the state community college system, Hunt said. And it serves all students, not just minorities, he said.
“Our goal and objective in this office is to make sure everyone who sets foot on this campus feels valued and welcomed. Period,” Hunt said.
No matter whether it’s his police work, his work at the college or coaching basketball, Hunt said he wants to make a difference.
“What I’m doing now, I never dreamed I would be where I am today,” Hunt said.