Dr. James W. Hunt would just as soon the spotlight shine on someone else. Tall, lean and gentlemanly, he is quick to deflect attention toward the accomplishments of others. But the fact remains that his life’s work to date helped make Mississippi a better place for children and adults with special needs. On the eve of his 90th birthday, he agreed to take a look back.
Hunt is an learned man, with a double major in physics and mathematics, with master’s and doctorate degrees. The Laurel area native is a former school administrator, math teacher, university professor of education and special education and director of what was the Center for Special Children at Mississippi University for Women. The MUW professor emeritus is a pathfinder, a decorated military veteran, poet and writer, a man “plagued by curiosity.” He is also a devoted family man. Perhaps most of all, he is a man steadfast in the belief that “you must live for others if you are to see the grace and love of God in your own life.”
Much of Hunt’s career has been as an advocate for understanding and meeting the needs of children and adults with intellectual and developmental issues, to accepting them for who they are.
He once wrote, “My least favorite terms (are) special education, handicapped, disabled, mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed, deaf, blind, etc., that label, classify, categorize any of God’s children which focus on limitations rather than possibilities!”
Awakenings
When asked about the origins of his commitment to the special needs community, Hunt grew thoughtful, then recounted an experience. It was in the late 1950s; he was principal of an elementary school in Jackson, one that had a special education class. One of the students had been brain injured from birth.
“One day it was raining like cats and dogs,” he began. A flustered teacher came to him saying that student was out in the driving rain, walking up and down the street, unresponsive to all efforts to get her inside.
“I had no idea what to do in that situation, no training,” he recalled. Hunt walked out in the downpour, becoming fearful the young girl would venture out onto the nearby highway. He followed his instincts, sternly directing her to immediately go back to the school. She did. But from that encounter, “I realized I had children in my school that I didn’t know how to deal with, how to treat them,” he said.
Hunt was compelled to learn more, do more.
A doctoral level special education program was developed for him at Ole Miss, where none had existed before. It encompassed an array of internships. He went to what was then known as a retardation center at Ellisville, to what used to be the crippled children’s center, to Mississippi’s School for the Blind and School for the Deaf and to vocational rehabilitation facilities.
“My education came pretty heavily weighted with experience,” said Hunt, who developed an intense empathy for special needs individuals through these hands-on experiences.
He recalled a day at Ellisville State School during that time that had lasting impact. A physical therapist was working with children in the non-ambulatory ward, trying to teach them to walk a few steps with help.
“I asked her why she was doing it, since they would never walk unassisted, and she answered, ‘Do you know these children lie in bed 24/7 — and that they are very susceptible to life-ending pneumonia? … ‘ Whatever small movement they could achieve, she was determined to help them accomplish it,” shared Hunt. “I thought, what a heart. What an acceptance of an individual as one of God’s children. From that I got my love for anyone who is different.”
In Columbus
When Hunt accepted a position in education at The W in 1963, Columbus and Lowndes public schools had no school services for special needs children. By 1964, he was active in the Lowndes County Association for the Retarded, as it was then known, which began a class at a local church. The group eventually erected its own building. Hunt remembers teacher Nelda Bailey.
“I’ve learned from a lot of people,” the retired professor said. “From Nelda, I learned that if you have no expectations of children, that’s what they will live up to. Nelda expected children to learn, and I learned that special needs children have special abilities — you just have to find out what they are.”
With changes in federal mandates on special education, Hunt’s focus turned to the severely and profoundly handicapped — those who are not ambulatory, don’t feed themselves and are nonverbal.
“The mothers of these children are what I call 24/7 mothers,” he said. “They can never go to a movie, shopping with their husband, on vacation or even out for a walk.”
Through the committed efforts of Hunt and others, MUW began a ground-breaking program for the severely and profoundly handicapped that made an immense difference in the lives of affected families.
Hunt points to three graduate students — Martha Crawford, Ann Dove and Carol Frazier — who, under his supervision, completed research of work activity programs which became the design for the ACT Center in Columbus. There, special needs children who reached 16 and could no longer attend the center at MUW could receive training and contract employment.
There were other positive developments. Among them, a supervised apartment program gave special needs clients a way to be independent. And when, in 2003, a group home named in Hunt’s honor was dedicated in Columbus, providing a home for young women moving from an institutional setting to a community setting, the resource base expanded yet again.
Columbus had made great progress, in Hunt’s words, in evolving toward being “a beacon of special services for a wonderful group.”
It was all thanks to the work of many, more than can be named. In reminiscences, the names of teachers, pastors, state mental health officials, city and county leaders, dedicated parents and supportive groups like the Civitan Club and Weyerhaeuser Wives enter the conversation. The list is long. Alma Turner and Connie Tilley are prominent on it. Hunt has called them “superheroes”
Turner and Tilley return the praise.
Above and beyond
As the mother of a special needs child, Turner, a longtime educator, now retired, came to know Hunt at The W. He became her advisor.
“When I came here I just remember that helpless feeling of what am I going to do and where do I turn? I was so distraught,” Turner recalled. “He was the person who picked me up, my entire family, and helped me find resources, pointed me in the right direction. He wanted me to know that I was not alone.”
Tilley is director of Columbus Community Programs, a division of Ellisville State School. She and Turner worked closely for years with Hunt toward multiple goals, including Empowering Parents for the 21st Century. The three crusaders traveled the state, educating teachers and parents of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities about resources. They’ve worked shoulder to shoulder on many occasions.
“Dr. Hunt’s always been somebody with a soft spot who has worked diligently to make sure services were available for (special needs) individuals of all ages,” remarked Tilley. He has been a tremendous advocate, at local, state and federal levels, for anyone with developmental disabilities and their parents, she added. “He has gone above and beyond the call of duty … ”
In his long career, people have described Dr. Hunt as “wonderful” for working with the special needs population.
“I would like to be ‘wonderful’ because I’ve been privileged to work with beautiful young people,” he once wrote. “I believe anyone can work with these young people, if you accept them as wonderful human beings with the potential to be all they can be. All of us are God’s children — accept us, love us, help us to be as independent as possible. … Yes, there are special needs, but the biggest need is to be accepted as a person.”
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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