By PARRY TEASDALE
YOU CAN IMAGINE STEWART HUNT whether you knew him or not. I imagine he smiled a lot. Liked to help other people. It makes sense that he would be a volunteer firefighter in Columbia County.
He died June 15 while responding to an emergency call. He had an emergency of his own. He was 37.
There’s an obituary from the Peck & Peck Funeral Homes on Page 19 of our June 22 issue. It says that other emergency personnel could not revive him. Those are the facts of his death as we have them. The facts of his life include his commitment to public service as a firefighter in three different volunteer fire companies (twice with the Ancram Fire Department) and as an emergency medical technician for the Community Rescue Squad. His father served on the Ancram Fire Department before him.
Stewart Hunt was a motor equipment operator for the county. You get the idea that he might be considered a regular guy, spending time with his wife Stephanie Shumsky-Hunt and their young son, Zachary.
He was that. But he clearly was more than regular. Much more. The people of this county of roughly 60,000 depend on neighbors like him to save our homes and our lives if it comes to that.
We casually expected Stewart Hunt to fulfill our expectations. He was doing that job when he lost his life.
For the last few days I’ve been wondering how to say goodbye and thank you to a person I may never have met. Certainly a contribution to the fund that the Ancram Fire Department is setting as a college fund for Zachary. Mail a check to the AFD and write “Zachary’s College fund” in the memo line.
Thank You Stewart Hunt.
