Jim Hunt is a nationally recognized leader in education and has led North Carolina through twenty years of dramatic economic change. Serving a historic four terms as Governor, he has been at the forefront of education reform in his state and in the nation. The Rand Corporation reports that North Carolina public schools improved test scores more than any other state in the 1990s.
He has particularly focused on early childhood development and improving the quality of teaching in America. His Smart Start program is a nonprofit, public-private partnership rooted in each of the state’s one hundred counties providing quality child care, health care, and family support for each child. It is funded primarily by the state but is also supported heavily by private corporations and individuals. Smart Start has been visited and studied by early childhood leaders from all fifty states and many foreign countries. It received the prestigious Innovations in American Government Award from the Ford Foundation and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Admitted to the North Carolina Bar in 1966, Governor Hunt currently is a member in the law firm of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC, in Raleigh. He and his wife, Carolyn, live on their beef cattle farm in Eastern North Carolina, located on land that has been in his family since the county was formed.The Hunts raise purebred Simmental beef cattle that have won state bull tests and received both Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion designations at the North Carolina State Fair. The Hunts have four children and ten grandchildren.