Fern Hunt

We celebrate one of our most loyal donors and her 70 years of consecutive giving to Ohio State.

It was the year White Christmas debuted in theaters; the year Elvis launched his legendary career; the year Woody Hayes led the Buckeyes to their second national championship; and the year Dr. Fern E. Hunt made her first donation to her alma mater, Ohio State.

In 1954, Dr. Hunt was a recent alumna with a desire to pay forward when she and her late husband and fellow-alum gave their first donation of $6 to the university. That modest initial gift was the launch point for giving that has now stretched across seven decades.

The longevity of Dr. Hunt’s giving is remarkable, but what makes it even more impressive is its consistency. With 70 consecutive years of giving, she has one of the longest consecutive giving records at Ohio State. (How firm thy friendship, indeed.)

Through gifts of various sizes, Dr. Hunt’s commitment has never wavered. The impetus for this unbreakable thread of gifts stems from a desire to do right and from a life uniquely interwoven with Ohio State.

At the age of 97 and with three Ohio State degrees to her name, BS ’48, MS ’54, PhD ’65, few have as long a history with the university as Dr. Hunt. She met the man she would marry here. She served as a professor in the College of Home Economics here and would go on to work for the university until her retirement in 1988. Today, she remains a Faculty Emeritus in the Department of Human Sciences.

Dr. Hunt, who majored in Human Nutrition, originally chose to study at Ohio State for a simple reason: It was an outstanding and affordable university. “You can’t beat that combination,” she reflects.

From her undergraduate years, she recalls the tremendous school spirit she felt part of and that, most of all, she enjoyed her classes, her professors and the football games, which were “thrilling” and (equally important to her) inexpensive, at about 50 cents a ticket.

Affordability was key because Dr. Hunt came from humble beginnings. “My parents were very poor and weren’t able to help us much financially, but they were very insistent that we get an education.” One of ten children growing up in her family in rural Perry County — “not a very rich place,” as she describes it — Dr. Hunt took her parents’ guidance to heart.

She never underestimated the value of education, and she never forgot the importance of giving people from economically challenged backgrounds access to a world-class place to learn. One of the first funds she established as a donor to Ohio State, the David S. Hunt Scholarship Fund, was for children from Tuscarawas County, and, recognizing her late husband who had studied to be a teacher, she focused the fund on education. Additionally, she established the C & M Ensminger Fund to honor her parents with preference given to students from Perry County.

Today, she encourages the next generation to save, invest and give back. She shares, “I’ve been trying to get some of my nieces and nephews interested in making regular investments. It doesn’t have to be a lot.”

Her philanthropic example and wisdom ring with extra meaning these days. In our world of constantly competing priorities and pressing distractions, it is remarkable to have the unshakeable generosity and faithful commitment of one who is truly a Buckeye for life.

As she shares, “Mom had two goals for us children. One, she wanted us all to get an education and two, she wanted us to do right.” She adds, “I think we met her expectations.” We wholeheartedly agree.

We celebrate Dr. Hunt’s devotion, a testament to the power of relationships and the simple joy in ties that bind.