Kokomo campus' newest building a shining star

Virgil Hunt

Sheathed in Indiana limestone, Virgil and Elizabeth Hunt Hall houses instructional, lab and office space for programs of IU Kokomo's natural and allied health sciences, some mathematical courses and the campus' physical plant department. It features more than a dozen labs for classes in biology, chemistry, physics, physiology, geology and anatomy. Experiment preparation facilities include a cold room and a plant growth chamber. One high-tech classroom can serve either as a large lecture hall or for activities requiring state-of-the-art audiovisual and computer equipment. Another lab holds two lasers used in holographic studies.

A new program will be introduced at IU Kokomo in the fall of 2002 because of new instrumentation and space added to the campus—radiographic technology (see related story, this section.) The new facility has also boosted IU Kokomo's chemistry major, begun in 1999.

 

Nancy and Bill Hunt

Bill Hunt and his wife, Nancy, made the largest single donation in the history of IU Kokomo to provide support for the hall that bears Bill's parents' names. "The science building was perfect because that (science) is what my father taught," said Hunt, an alumnus of the IU School of Law-Bloomington.

The former president of Central Normal College in Ladoga, Virgil Hunt served as director of the Kokomo campus (then called an IU extension center) from 1945 to 1956. He personally recruited the university students and faculty, calling recent graduates of Kokomo High School and hiring teachers from the high school and a local junior college. During Hunt's tenure, enrollment at IU Kokomo grew from 188 students to more than 700.

"I remember in later years, I would travel around with Dad, and he would put the tailgate down on the car and enroll students right there," Bill Hunt said. "He would sell the textbooks out of the back; it was a real lesson in entrepreneurial education!"

His father's "single greatest accomplishment," Hunt said, was "creating something from nothing in time to meet the demand created by the G.I. Bill and the opportunity to serve so many returning World War II veterans."

With a bachelor's degree and master's degree in chemistry from IU, Virgil Hunt had worked as a military research scientist at Johns Hopkins University before coming to Kokomo. He taught algebra and chemistry classes at the IU Kokomo Extension Center.

Bill Hunt said that his father's interest in science solidified the younger Hunt's decision when the opportunity came up to name IU Kokomo's new science building. "I knew I wanted to do something for both IU Kokomo and for my mother and father. I think that their time here was the most fulfilling time for them, and that his work here was the crowning achievement of his life . . . Our entire family is an Indiana University family, and it has been a life-long labor of love to be a part of this university."

Ruth Person, chancellor of IU Kokomo, agreed. "I can't think of anyone who deserves to be honored more than Virgil Hunt," she said. "He is the founding father of IU Kokomo, and he got this place off to a great start."

The Hunt gift also will be used for the endowment of the Virgil and Elizabeth Hunt Scholars program. The Hunt Scholarships are awarded solely on merit to students majoring in science or science education. (See below.)