George Laird Hunt, a pastor, author and former editor of the Presbyterian Outlook, died Oct. 15 in Lakeland, Florida.
Hunt, 94, served as the Outlook’s editor from 1978 to 1988 and in 1997 was honored with the magazine’s Ernest Trice Thompson Award.
Hunt graduated with a master of divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1943 and was ordained later that year. After that, his service to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was long and varied – reflecting the breadth of his intellectual engagements. He served as pastor of congregations in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including as pastor of Fanwood Presbyterian Church in Fanwood, N.J. from 1963 to 1978. He worked for the denomination’s Board of Christian Education for more than a decade, in part as an editor of curriculum for adults and of Bible studies for Presbyterian Women. And he was a Presbyterian leader in ecumenism, serving as executive secretary of the Consultation on Church Union.
As a writer, Hunt took on subjects from theology to history. He wrote Bible studies and was an editor of Crossroads, a curriculum magazine. His books include “Twelve Makers of Modern Protestant Thought” and “Rediscovering the Church.”
After retiring from the Outlook, Hunt moved with his wife, Mary Alice, to Florida Presbyterian Homes, a community with a variety of levels of care in Lakeland, Fla. They became active in Westminster Church in Lakeland, both of them singing in the choir, and at Presbyterian Homes, with George Hunt reorganizing the Homes’ library and becoming chairman of its History Committee. Mary Alice Hunt died in 2001, and in 2005 George Hunt married Ruth Boynton.
Hunt was born on Sept. 11, 1919 in Philadelphia, and graduated from Maryville College in Tennessee in 1940. He and Mary Alice Minear wed in 1943 and together had three children – Laurence Hunt of Lakeland, Fla.; Bruce Hunt of Dover, Del.; and Marcia Beth Hunt of Montclair, N.J.
With his second wife, Ruth Boynton Hunt, George Hunt had three step-children. He is also survived by both grandchildren and step-grandchildren.
Hunt’s memorial service will be held Oct. 21 at 2:30 p.m. in the Glenn Moore Chapel at Florida Presbyterian Homes, with Barbara Booth-Jarmin officiating, assisted by Jean and Bill Cooley. The family asks that donations be made to Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lakeland, Florida.
