“C.L. (Hunter) was a mover and a shaker in the community, a leader, a visionary and enjoyed people a lot,” Valley View United Methodist Church pastor Dennis Heffner said.
That’s how many people in the Española Valley will remember C.L. Hunter who died July 21 at the age of 83.
Hunter was a prominent Española businessman since the 1950s, owning the Ford dealership at the intersection of Paseo de Oñate and State Road 30, and co-founding Valley National Bank.
Hunter was born in Española, according to longtime friend and business partner Richard Cook.
In 1936, Hunter’s father, C.V. Hunter, opened Hunter Motor Company, which would later become Hunter Ford. It was among the first Ford dealerships in New Mexico. Cook said he remembers when C.L. Hunter worked at his father’s filling station as a child.
Hunter took over the family dealership in 1954 and managed it for the next 44 years, after which it became Rio Valley Ford, then Corley Ford, which closed in 2009. Hunter sold the property to the city in October 2010 for $300,000.
Cook said he and Hunter both went off to school in Colorado. Hunter went to the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Cook went to the University of Denver.
“He always had a car because his family owned the dealership,” Cook said. “We partied together, we did a lot of things together. And during the summers I would hitchhike with him.”
Cook said he and his friend were also in business together. They started Valley National Bank in 1964 with the investment of 16 people in the community, whom they eventually bought out, according to Cook.
“We’d have board meetings that started at 6 o’clock and went until 1 o’clock in the morning because a lot of us were inexperienced and we wanted to get it right,” he said.
Heffner remembered Hunter would stand in the doorway of the bank and greet everyone who came in with a smile.
Hunter’s wife Dorothy shared a similar memory of her husband.
“If you didn’t smile at every customer walking through the door, then go home,” she said C.L. Hunter would tell bank employees.
Cook said he and C.L. Hunter also opened the Chamisa Inn, a hotel, bar and entertainment place, where the Rock Christian Fellowship is currently located. Opened in the mid-1970s, it was the first of its kind in the Valley, with quality hotel rooms, food and a place to hear live music and dance.
Dorothy Hunter, herself a bank employee, said she was introduced to C.L. Hunter several times in the community, but she wasn’t immediately taken away with him.
“I didn’t like him at first,” she said. “But first impressions can sometimes be wrong.”
Her opinion later changed; Dorothy Hunter said her husband was respectful and compassionate to everyone.
“He cared about people and community,” she said.
C.L. Hunter served on several political and public-service boards, including on the Española Hospital Board, the Española City Council, the Los Alamos Community Council, the Kiwanis Club, the 4-H Club and Future Farmers of America. He was also president of the Española Valley Chamber of Commerce in the 1960s and served on the board for many years.
Hunter and Cook, along with several other businessmen, were driving forces behind making the Chamber a successful business tool, growing Española’s retail base throughout the 1960s and ‘70s.
“He had his fingers in a lot of pies, and he loved every minute of it,” Dorothy Hunter said.
C.L. Hunter made a difference by bringing the community and businesses together to collaborate with one another, Heffner said. He said people like Hunter are hard to come by.
“There’s a big lack of that kind of charisma (now),” Heffner said. “He made things happen.”
Hunter taught the community about having pride, dignity and a healthy respect for one another, Heffner said.
“He raised the bar for the community instead of lowering it,” Heffner said. “We keep accepting less than what’s best. He pushed and prodded tirelessly. The energy he put into the community he could’ve spent in many other ways. He knew for anyone to do well, the total community needed to be brought together.”