Beverly Jane Hunt (nee Evans), former co-owner of this newspaper, died on March 24, in a San Juan Cosalá nursing home at the age of 87.
She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on November 2, 1936, at a time when the economic struggles of the Great Depression still lingered in that part of the country. Her parents, Jack and Bette Evans, took to the road to find work while Beverly was still a baby. They travelled the southern United States - New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and Virginia - for eight years, living in rooming houses and modest hotel rooms, while maintaining ties with Beverly’s maternal grandparents at their home in Grove, Oklahoma. Bev attended 11 different elementary schools during that period.
Playing cards, not children’s games but bridge and gin, in those rooms with her mother and dad, was a major recreation that supplemented her early education, especially in math and strategy skills, and gave her a lifelong love of cards, especially bridge. The three of them eventually settled in Rochester, Minnesota, where Beverly attended Rochester High School and played tennis and golf.
After graduation, Bev enrolled in the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she pledged Phi Beta Kappa. After earning a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts, which included Spanish language studies, she went on to obtain a Master’s in Business Education.
After college, she became a teacher of business studies, first back in Rochester before moving west to Los Angeles and a job at Reseda High School. During that stint, in 1961 friends arranged a blind date for Beverly with Allyn Hunt. They married in Los Angeles in 1962 and moved into a shack built on the sands of Malibu Beach. It was a basic one-room house but had spectacular views. Nearby neighbors included Shirley MacLaine and Charles Bronson.
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