You immediately knew Jack Hunt was someone special, even if you’d never met him.
I first saw him a couple of years ago when he walked into a local real estate meeting, frail and with the aid of a cane. Immediately, a literal who’s who of Wichita commercial agents flocked to him like moths to a flame.
Hunt, 86, who died Tuesday, was known for a lot of qualities, but none more so than his resourcefulness, as recounted by his friend, fellow commercial Realtor Rod Stewart.
Hunt, Stewart and their friends took a two-RV vacation 32 years ago to Santa Fe, N.M.
The men were in one RV, the wives in another, when a group of machete-wielding locals decided they were going to invade the womens’ RV.
One of the locals raised his machete, Stewart said, and knocked on the door, only to be confronted by the smallish Hunt, carrying a 9mm handgun.
“Don’t make me ruin my vacation,” Hunt warned the intruders.
The door-knocker complied, throwing his machete on the ground and telling Hunt, “Please don’t shoot me, crazy grandpa.” Hunt kept the machete, Stewart said, had it bronzed and displayed it above the bar of his Wichita home.
That, Stewart said, was Jack Hunt in a nutshell. Read more about Hunt, his career and his influence on Wichita commercial real estate in Friday’s Eagle.