Julius K. Hunter, Vice President for Community Relations since 2002, joined the University executive staff following an award-winning career in broadcast and print journalism that spanned for more than 40 years.

Hunter’s first writing job was as a producer, writer and announcer at KSLH, the radio station owned by the St. Louis School System. Programs he created, wrote, produced and voiced were heard in classrooms throughout the city school system.

In 1968, Hunter became the first African American to be hired as a copywriter at what was then the third-largest advertising agency in the country, Foote Cone & Belding in Chicago. He and his group wrote TV and print copy for such products as Dial Soap & Deodorant, Kleenex and Raid House & Garden Spray.

Hunter was a reporter/anchorman at Channel 5, the NBC affiliate in St. Louis from 1970 to 1975. He then served as senior reporter/anchor at the CBS television station in St. Louis from 1975 till 2002. Hunter’s responsibility during his television career included editing and writing news copy for three half-hour newscasts a day.

In the early 1980s, Hunter researched and wrote a weekly column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called “Past Times.” The column, which ran every Friday from June 1982 to December 1983, featured little-known facts and stories about St. Louis’ rich and colorful history. Hunter also wrote a number of extended feature articles for the Post-Dispatch, including a Spain/Portugal travelogue, and an article on the exhumation of two prominent 19th century St. Louis landowners following excavation for a new home development. The identity of the two had remained a mystery until revealed by Hunter’s research.

In 1981, Hunter joined an elite band of journalists including Walter Cronkite, Norman Cousins, Judy Woodruff, Christine Amanpour and Jack Buck when he was awarded the University of Missouri-Columbia Journalism School’s “Medal of Honor” for distinguished service to journalism … the equivalent of an honorary doctorate degree.

Hunter’s literary credits include six books published by such companies as Times-Mirror, University of Missouri Press, C.V. Mosby & Company and Mennonite Press. The books include a popular children’s alphabet book, a college textbook on broadcast news, two books on St. Louis’ majestic private place mansions, a family history beginning with his great-great grandfather’s birth as a slave in 1825 Kentucky and a beginner’s guide to genealogy. In addition, he has written the foreword for nine published works.

Hunter is the founder of the expansive Julius K. Hunter & Friends African American Research Collection housed at the St. Louis County Library. This collection-the largest in the Midwest-includes microfilmed census data, books, maps, slave ship manifest records, data bases, Underground Railroad materials, Civil War records of the troops who were former slaves, rare newspapers and plantation records.

In 1993, Hunter was presented with two awards recognizing his journalistic efforts. He was named “Media Person of the Year” by the St. Louis Press Club, and he received the St. Louis Book Award presented by the St. Louis County Historical Society.

And Hunter was recognized in April 2002 as one of six outstanding St. Louis communicators in print and electronic journalism by the Missouri affiliate of the National Federation of Press Women.