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Wednesday, 31 December 2025
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Written by Margaret Dickson
James Baxter Hunt, known to people in North Carolina, across the United States, and around the world as plain old Jim Hunt, left us a few short weeks ago at well-earned age of 88.
His fingerprints are everywhere in our community, in our state, and in educational circles everywhere and have been for about 50 years. North Carolina is successful and growing state in large part because of Jim Hunt.
Native Tar Heels know how he led our state, and newer arrivals have benefited from his political life, whether they know it or not.
Jim Hunt’s list of accompaniments is too long to fit into roughly 600 words, but collectively they changed, shaped, and improved a largely-rural North Carolina. To birth them, he cajoled legislators, educators, and
business leaders. He was relentless and almost always prevailed.
We can thank Hunt, at least in part, for the early learning program Smart Start, which did just that for young children. For universal public kindergarten.
For the state School of Science and Math, which gives North Carolina’s brightest high schoolers a superior educational start in those fields.
For national board certification for teachers. For getting teacher pay up to the national average, although we are at the bottom now.
For the gubernatorial veto and gubernatorial succession, both of which gave North Carolina a more balanced distribution of powers. For the Hunt Institute, a think tank of educational policy, research, and leadership, which partners with the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.
After serving 16 years as Governor in 4 separate terms, Hunt retired from elective politics, but he was hardly out to pasture. He traveled on behalf of causes he supported, largely educational initiatives and economic development opportunities for North Carolina.
He also stirred our state’s political pots, offering his long expertise to fledging and experienced candidates. He was known to say, “Now, looka, here. This is what we need to do.” The wise listener took his advice.
One of those candidates was his own daughter, Rachel Hunt, of whom he was very proud and who now serves as North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor.
Only once did Jim Hunt ever lose an election, and that was in 1984, when he challenged sitting US Senator Jesse Helms. It was a bitter and racially tinged contest, that many view as the precursor to today’s ugly
politics.
Buckets of ink have been used writing about Jim Hunt, especially in the days following his death. One remembrance that stands out for me is by Barry Saunders, a retired opinion columnist for the Raleigh News and Observer. Saunders recalls in that paper an economic development trip he took with Governor Jim Hunt and his entourage to South Africa in 1994, shortly after apartheid officially ended there but was fresh in everyone’s minds. Saunders was the only person stopped by South African airport officials, ostensibly because he was a journalist. Saunders recounts the story this way.
“That’s when Gov. Hunt, who’d been several yards ahead of me when the kerfuffle began, peeled off from this entourage and came back to find out what was the issue.
“He’s with me,” he said and voila, I was admitted to the country.
“I’d first met Governor Hunt 10 years earlier, in 1984, when he’d come…to campaign while seeking to unseat U.S. Senator Jesse Helms….I finagled an invitation.”
“…Hunt…lost a vicious battle with Helms by four points. “As I’m guessing is true of many Tar Heels who traveled to other states during that period, I was often asked how I could live in a state that elected someone like
Jesse Helms. “My immediate and true response was it was a state that also elected people like Jim Hunt.”
His was a life well lived and all of us in North Carolina are better for it.
(Photo: Jim Hunt served North Carolina as governor in four separate terms. He brought about changes in the education system within the state. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)
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Tuesday, 16 December 2025
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Written by Margaret Dickson
As 2026 barrels toward us, we Americans have some significant pondering to do on a problem that is uncomfortable for most everyone. By Americans, I mean Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and people who may not bother to vote but who are nonetheless affected by decision-makers running our government.
The problem is that many of our political leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, are simply too old to be effective in their jobs. Some of them have the potential to be flat-out dangerous.
Think Joe Biden, who froze during a debate broadcast around the world.
Think Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, who did the same thing multiple times in public, and we have no idea what happened in private.
Think California Senator Diane Feinstein, who repeated questions during Senate committee hearings and reportedly sometimes did not know where she was.
Think South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who fondled teenage pages and died at 100, just six months after leaving office.
And think Donald Trump, who, love him or loathe him, is not the same person he was during his first term as President and who now openly dozes in meetings, calls women journalists “piggy,” and rages online at night.
Each of these leaders is/was at least in his/her late 70s, and others are/were considerably older.
Age is a delicate topic because most people of a certain age function well or not as private citizens, not public officials. Our loved ones may worry about our health and our decision-making abilities, but whatever they may be, they do not affect thousands or millions of others.
When the United States was formed, our Founding Fathers (there were no official Founding Mothers) realized there should be age minimums and wrote them into our Constitution—25 for members of the US House of Representatives, 30 for members of the US Senate, and 35 for US President. North Carolina’s Constitution also has minimum ages—21 for the NC House, 25 for the NC Senate, and 30 for Governor.
And, oh my goodness! US Supreme Court justices and federal judges hold constitutionally mandated lifetime appointments. Many do resign for all sorts of reasons, but some who do not wind up in the same advanced age situations as elected politicians. They make decisions for others that are difficult, if not impossible, to change.
Most other advanced nations limit legislative and judicial service through term limits or mandatory retirement ages, but most of the US does not. The North Carolina General Assembly actually raised the retirement age for appellate judges from 72 to 76 to accommodate the birthday of a conservative Supreme Court Justice it wanted to keep in place—clearly a move in the wrong direction!
Little, if any, thought was given to age limits, probably because in the late 18th century, life was shorter than it is now and few lingered in old age, which is often prolonged today by modern pharmaceuticals. George Washington died at 69, and while Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin made it into their 80s, the average lifespan for a man in 1800 was around 40. With life being so short, there was apparently little, if any, thought given to decision-makers who overstay their capabilities.
That simply was not a problem in the early days of our nation.
It is now.
While many older Americans—you and I know plenty of them—remain vibrant and capable well into old age and to their last breaths, many do not. This becomes a serious issue when they are making life-changing decisions not only for themselves but for millions of Americans and others around the world.
Remedying the United States’ dilemma of aging decision makers will not be easy and will involve the participation of some of those same decision makers.
That said, we need to proceed for the sake of a nation that has evolved dramatically over its 250 years of existence.
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