ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996 TAG: 9609050111
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
SOMEONE in her church let it slip.
He didn't know it was supposed to be a surprise, so one day he remarked to Maxine Hunt about how wonderful it was that folks were planning a special program for her - to honor her for her years of teaching, community service and her ever-ready piano virtuosity.
Hunt, 66, is a humble woman despite her many accomplishments. A few years back people tried to throw a big reception for her, and she put a stop to it. ``I said, `No. No. No. No. No.'''
This time Hunt did a little gentle detective work. "I started talking to different friends," Hunt recalls. "It started leaking out. Then I confronted my daughter."
Hunt laughs. "It's been fun," she says. "Bit by bit, it's come out."
But it's too late now to stop it - the appreciation service and reception for Maxine Nicholas Hunt is going to happen this time.
It will take place Saturday at 4 p.m. at First Baptist Church on North Jefferson Street in Roanoke.
By the time she learned enough of the details, the whole thing was already planned. She relented and let the organizers go forward.
"I don't know why they're doing this. I don't deserve it," she says, sitting in the house that she's lived in just off Northwest Roanoke's Eureka Park for the past 37 years. "I don't know why. I don't know why. But I am pleased, I guess."
Earle Woodliff, choir director at St. Paul United Methodist Church, knows why.
Like many of the 5,000 or so students she had over the years, he remembers her as an inspiration.
He first worked with her on a concert when he was a student at the former Booker T. Washington Junior High in Roanoke in the early 1960s.
"I learned a lot from her just by listening to her," he says. "For all the musicians around the Roanoke Valley, she's more or less the matriarch of music for us. None of us can say enough about her. She's just a very unique, very sweet person."
So Woodliff and his other co-conspirators were determined they were going to pull the event off this time. Still, "it took a little doing to persuade her to let us do this for her," he says.
Now that the cat's out of the bag, Hunt is using her time in the spotlight as a chance to shift the credit to her church and all the people she's treasured over the years - people who helped and inspired her along the way.
First there are her parents. Her father was a laborer at Norfolk and Western Railway. Her mother kept their home on Seventh Street Northwest. At Hill Street Baptist Church, young Maxine Nicholas watched the choir and musicians perform, and she knew she wanted to learn the piano.
Her parents scraped together money for lessons. Her pastor, the Rev. D.R. Powell, encouraged her musical inclination. "He was very supportive to young people," she recalls.
By the time she was playing for the choir at Lucy Addison High School, she knew music would be her life's work.
A lot of that had to do with Eunice Poindexter, her music teacher. "She was sort of like my mentor. I was just so fond of her - I liked everything she did. She really knew her music. She was an excellent choral director. And the strictest of strict disciplinarians. She made her rules and she did not ever let up on them. The rules went for everybody."
After graduating from high school, Maxine Nicholas went to Virginia State University to study music.
"My parents always said we would go to college," she recalls. "It was just expected. We just grew up that way - just like going to grade 13, I guess."
She and her brother and three sisters all attended college.
After getting her music degree in 1951, she married Alaska C. Hunt, a postal worker from Roanoke. She taught music at an elementary school in Farmville for two years, commuting home on weekends by train.
She came back to Roanoke full time in 1953 when her daughter, Donna, was born.
In 1955 she took a job at Booker T. Washington Junior High. She taught there until 1969. Then she taught for 20 more years at Monroe and Addison junior highs before retiring in 1989.
She retired from paid work, but not from anything else. She continued as pianist at Hill Street, where she's been music director for 38 years and counting. She's also been music director of the Valley Baptist Association's women's auxiliary, and has served on the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra's fund-raising, executive and conductor search committees.
Over the years, she's played just about every black church in the Roanoke Valley, along with several of the predominantly white churches. Often her former students will call and ask her to play at their weddings.
"Looks like I never have a moment to waste. But I think that's what keeps me going."
Before the interview is over, she asks if the story could mention her daughter, Donna Anthony, and her granddaughters, Caroline, 6, and Cathie, 8. And, oh yes, one more: "Could you mention Moses? He's such a sweet son-in-law."
"They are my hearts, I tell you."
Caroline and Cathie were there last week when she went to Hollins College to receive the Perry F. Kendig Award for Outstanding Support of the Arts.
Now it's on to new honors. Countless people have been working on the upcoming reception, including Hunt's longtime friend and fellow teacher, Mary Allen. "We were little girls in the Sunday school together," Hunt recalls. "That was a long time ago. We're friends today. We talked this morning."
It's hard to turn down friends like these.
"I keep saying, `Why are you doing this?' But underneath I appreciate what they're doing. Bless their hearts."
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PHILIP HOLMAN/Staff. Maxine Hunt has been an inspirationby CNBto many an aspiring musician. Among her accomplishments and
contributions: She's been director of music at Hill Street Baptist
Church, music director of the Valley Baptist Association's women's
auxiliary, and has served on the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra's
fund-raising, executive and conductor search committees. color.