Richard A. Hunter ’44 died January 5, 2012.
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RICHARD A. HUNTER,  CLASS OF 2011

With his diploma

Richard Andrew Hunter, one of four veterans to be honored with an honoraryBachelors Degree from Amherst in May, 2011, died of natural causes at his home in Florida on January 5th.  He was 90 years old.   Born in North Adams, MA, he and his brother were  fifth generation owners of the Hunter Machine Company in North Adams.   During high school, Deerfield Academy became a second home to him and famous headmaster, Frank Boyden, became his most influential mentor.  It was Boyden who urged him to attend Amherst, where he enrolled along with fifteen of his classmates.

An English major, he wrote for the Amherst newspaper and played varsity soccer and golf.  Before junior year ended, Hunter enlisted in the war effort, like so many of his classmates.  He was sent to Fort Leonard Wood in St. Louis, MO, where the one mitigating factor, besides the knowledge he was serving his country, was that his elementary school sweetheart, Lucy Adams, attended nearby Principia College.

Hunter1

As a member of the army infantry on the front lines in the Pacific, he was stationed in New Guinea and fought in the battles of Noemfoor and Luzon prior to training for the invasion of Japan, where, as a scout, he knew he faced certain death. Less than a week before the scheduled invasion, the atomic bomb strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki compelled the Japanese to surrender and Hunter landed in Japan as a member of the occupation forces. He would never expound on the reason for his bronze and silver star or any other battle distinction, choosing instead to reflect on his Deerfield and Amherst friends who made the ultimate sacrifice.

 

Upon his return, he accepted Harvard Business School’s offer to earn an MBA.  A highlight for him was being one of four veterans to receive his B.A. from Amherst as a member of the class of 2011 last May. 

Family always came first for Hunter, who, in almost 62 years of marriage to his adored Lucy -who died in 2009 - raised four children, ran the Hunter Machine Company with his brother James (Bing) Hunter, and served on the Board of Selectmen and as Williamstown Town Moderator. He and Lucy retired to Dorset, VT and later to Naples, FL. He will be sorely missed by his three surviving children, Andy Hunter, of Weston, MA, Tracy Hunter of Newcastle, Maine, and Lisa Sydness of Wellesley, MA, along with their spouses, Sara Hunter and Steve Sydness, and his four admiring grandchildren.