Dr. Preston Hunt, president of the Texas Medical Association in 1940, died in a hospital in Pampa, Texas, on July 10, 1955. He was formerly a resident of Texarkana, but had been living with his brother since 1951.
The son of Jesse Ivy Hunt and Sarah J. Hunt, he was born on February 5, 1866, in Tupelo, Mississippi. He received his early education in the county schools there, and when he was 21, left home to become a railroad laborer, thus financing his higher education. In 1890, he moved to Texarkana, where he worked several years in the railway news business. He completed his first two years of medical school at the Hospital College of Physicians and Surgeons in Louisville, Kentucky and the Medical Department of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. He received his medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Atlanta, Georgia in 1901.
Returning to Texarkana to begin his medical practice, Dr. Hunt became associated with the Texarkana Hospital, in which he bought a major interest and was a director and treasurer throughout most of his years in active practice. Upon his retirement, he gave his stock in the hospital to the public, specifying that the institution should be administered in trust by a board of physicians.
He was president and secretary of both the Bowie (Texas) and Miller (Arkansas) County Medical Societies at the time when dual membership in adjoining states was permissible, and was a past president of the Fifteenth District Medical Society and Councilor of that district. He served six years as a delegate from his county society to the State Association. Dr. Hunt was a member of the American Medical Association, and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. During World War I, he was a medical examiner and a member of the Medical Section of the Council on National Defense.
Dr. Hunt was a Knight Templar and a 32nd degree Mason. He was a member and past president of the Texarkana Lions Club and a member of the Baptist church, in which he was a deacon for more than forty years. He was a member of the executive board of the Tex-Ark Boy Scout Council for ten years, chairman of the Scout health and safety committee for five years, chairman of the annual council meeting in 1936, a member of the Texarkana District Scout Committee, and a member of the district board of directors for the Texarkana Boy Scout organization. In 1936, he donated 200 acres of land for the establishment of Camp Preston Hunt and made numerous improvements on the campsite.
Dr. Hunt married Miss Hattie Hutton on January 1, 1914 in Ballinger. They had no children, and Mrs. Hunt died in 1935 while serving as president of the Women's Auxiliary to the Texas Medical Association. Survivors of Dr. Hunt include two brothers, the Rev. Claude E. Hunt of McLean and Grover Hunt of Wellington. He also leaves one sister, Mrs. Sally Filgo of Verona, Mississippi.
= = = published in the Texas State Journal of Medicine, September 1955. Transcriber is not a relative and has no further information regarding this family.
No comments:
Post a Comment