William David "Dave" Hunt

William David "Dave" Hunt, 73, of Watkinsville, Georgia died peacefully Saturday, December 31, 2011. Dave, born in Detroit, Michigan on February 13, 1938, was the ninth child of the late Clyde and Mary Hunt. Born in an impoverished post-Depression era Detroit, Dave's early life, one bereft of material goods and yet filled with a mother's hope in God's faithfulness would mark his entire life with a compassion for the needy and downtrodden as well as a fervent faith in God.
As a young man, Dave showed more promise as an athlete than a scholar. His family and childhood friends still tell stories of Dave's ability to demonstrate awe-inspiring individual feats and team leadership on the hockey rink, the gridiron, and the baseball diamond. Dave's ability to throw a baseball where the batter wasn't looking drew the attention of baseball scouts from several major league teams including his beloved Detroit Tigers. Later in life, many in the softball community of Griffin, Georgia were routinely amazed at Dave's ability to send the ball over the left-center field fence, usually more than once a game. One coach needed his bat in the lineup so desperately that he berated Dave profanely for missing a game to see the birth of his daughter. A two-time high school dropout, Dave once saw a brighter future in a baseball uniform than in a cap and gown, but an elbow injury and a calling from God changed his life for good.
Dave managed to complete high school and was accepted into Southeastern Bible College (now Southeastern University) in Lakeland, Florida where he began his academic preparation for the ministry and met his future bride, Margie. Continuing on to Evangel College (now Evangel University) in Springfield, Missouri, Dave earned a Bachelor of Science degree. Moving to Georgia, Dave's first career began outside of the ministry working with the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services. As a social worker, Dave touched many lives through his efforts to ensure families were well fed and children were safe. Many adults today are unknowing beneficiaries of Dave's efforts to place children into loving adoptive families. While climbing the career ladder of state employment, Dave simultaneously earned his Master of Social Work at the University of Georgia and became a regional supervisor for DFCS. He was offered a position in the State office, but God had other plans.
In 1970, Dave felt the calling of God into professional ministry. Motivated by a strong conviction of his calling, Dave secured a position of associate pastor at Bouldercrest Assembly of God in Decatur, Georgia (later Evangel Temple of Decatur, Georgia). These were formative years in Dave's career as a minister, but God continued to lead Dave toward those in need. For a short time, Dave worked as the director of Teen Challenge, a halfway house and rehabilitation location in Midtown Atlanta, comforting, challenging, and ministering to the broken, disaffected 'hippie' generation that populated Atlanta in the early 1970's. In 1972, Dave was called into a lead pastor role at a newly formed Calvary Assembly of God in Griffin, Georgia (now Cornerstone Assembly of God) where he pastored for the next 12 years. Here, Dave preached the Word of God effectively drawing hundreds into relationship with God and counseled many through the pain of marital strife, substance abuse, mental illness, and everyday brokenness. At great risk to his reputation, he insisted that a church should be a place marked with compassion for and acceptance of those marginalized by society. In the South of the 1970's, his embrace of a multi-ethnic worship gathering was a controversy that some could not bear and others viewed as an inspiration.
In 1984, he assumed the pastoral position at Evangel Temple in Decatur, Georgia (now Evangel Community Church of Centerville, Georgia) returning to the church where he began his ministry years before. As with his church in Griffin, Evangel grew in numbers of people and in financial health. Dave continued to counsel and minister to those whose broken lives were restored by an encounter with Jesus Christ. Dave remained in this ministry until his retirement.
The next phase of Dave's life was marked by the joy of moving to the Athens area to be near his grandchildren and beloved Georgia Bulldogs as well as the painful, yet successful, battle over cancer and its complications that kept his wife Margie hospitalized for months. He continued to serve others in the ministry as a mentor, a counselor to ministers, an Executive Presbyter of the Georgia District of the Assemblies of God, an executive on the board of Evangel University until the point that vascular dementia left him unable to fulfill his responsibilities.
For much of his life, Dave's work has been behind the scenes and rarely publicly recognized. Therefore, it is less his accomplishment that people will celebrate as much as it is a celebration of the renewed life they have experienced as a result of Dave's relationship and work with them. Anyone who knew Dave would say that he was a man who loved people and gave his life to restoring their lives, and to life eternal in particular. Little did they know that Dave as well as his wife would say that he was not a 'people-person'. You would never know it. In addition to his wife, Margie Hunt, Dave is survived by a daughter, Elizabeth Miller, and her husband, Michael, of Watkinsville, Ga., and son, David, and his wife, Ingrid, of Watkinsville, Ga. He is also survived by three sisters, five grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews. He is preceded in death by his parents, five brothers, one sister, and a son, James Edward Hunt. Though the family has lost one dear to them, they do not want this to be a sad occasion. Dave always maintained that the funeral of a believer in Christ should be a celebratory event. In that spirit, Dave's life will be celebrated on Saturday, January 7, 2pm at the Church of the Nations in Athens, Ga. Interment will follow at Athens Memory Gardens. The family will receive friends on Friday, January 6, from 6-9pm at Lord & Stephens WEST in Bogart, Ga. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to the Alzheimer's Association (www.alz.org). Send online condolences to www.caringbridge.org/visit/wdavehunt.org.