James B. Hunt Jr.: A Legacy of Leadership

As workers changed the muddy rut in front of his rural Wilson County home into a paved road, Jim Hunt saw the future. That thirteen-year-old boy first witnessed the legacy of visionary leadership, seeing the connection between “good-roads” legislation and his community’s new ability to get their crops to market. Raised by his parents to value education and fairness, taught to lead by the Future Farmers of America, and exposed to wider learning at NC State and UNC–Chapel Hill, that young boy became the state’s youngest lieutenant governor at thirty-five, its governor at thirty-nine, and its only governor to serve four terms.

Photograph from the 1958 Agromeck, NCSU Libraries Special Collections Research Center

This exhibit celebrates that legacy of leadership and the profound impact it had on developing North Carolina into a model of education, technology, and growth in the New South. His is a legacy—as Governor Hunt has said himself many times—not about fighting over pieces of the pie. It’s about how to make the pie larger and how to ensure we all have a place at the table.

The exhibit can be seen in the Level 1 lobby of the Hunt Library during regular library hours.

Directions: /parking

Online exhibit: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/hunt-legacy-of-leadership/