Making an Elon education possible for additional students with financial need and special talents inspired trustee Vicky Hunt and her husband, Sam, of Burlington, N.C., to make a $250,000 gift to the Ever Elon Campaign to endow a scholarship in their names.
Funds from the endowment will provide need- or talent-based scholarships, including athletics scholarships, for deserving students. The Hunts say it was important to them that their gift helps as many students as possible.
“Sam and I believe that the endowment campaign is very important,” Vicky Hunt says. “We know that Elon’s endowment needs to be increased and that we need to make the Elon experience available to as many students as possible. Everyone gains from an endowment gift — the student, the donor, the university and hopefully the world.”
Hunt says scholarship support is even more critical during challenging economic times.
“I do feel that this campaign is even more timely now than when it began,” she says. “That is what the endowment is all about, making this Elon experience available to more students. I think we are such a great value for an independent university.”
Vicky Hunt is CEO of Hunt Electric Supply Co. and a former member of Elon’s Martha and Spencer Love School of Business Advisory Board. Sam Hunt is chairman of Hunt Electric Supply Co. He served four terms in the North Carolina House of Representatives and as the state’s transportation secretary from 1993 to 1995.
The Hunts received the university’s Frank S. Holt Jr. Business Leadership Award in 2005 in recognition of their contributions to the civic and business communities.
As transportation secretary, Sam Hunt launched rail service between Raleigh and Charlotte with the Piedmont Train. In 1997, in recognition of his service to the state, a portion of Interstate 85/40 in Alamance County was named the “Sam Hunt Freeway.” He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from East Carolina University in 1965.
Vicky Hunt has served as chairman of the N.C. Film Commission and is a former board member of the Alamance Community College Foundation, American Red Cross and North Carolina Zoo. She earned an undergraduate degree in American Studies from Mary Washington College in 1972 and a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1974.
Increasing support for need- and talent-based scholarships is one of the goals of the $100 million Ever Elon Campaign to build the endowment, increase annual and planned gifts, and build and preserve the campus.