Mary Scott Hunter announces bid for Lieutenant Governor
HUNTSVILLE- Walking among the grave markers at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France, Mary Scott Hunter told her father she wanted to one day go into public service.
Hunter served 10 years in the US Air Force, Air Force Reserve and Alabama Air National Guard attaining the rank of major. Currently she serves on the Alabama State Board of Education, a position she was twice elected to by wide margins.
Now, she seeks a higher office to answer a calling to serve that still drives her 25 years after that day in Normandy where over 9,000 American soldiers and airmen are buried.
“I announced early because Alabama is a big state and you have to balance your life and I am going to be spending time in the Shoals, in Shelby County, the Wiregrass, my first home Baldwin County, and Tuscaloosa my second home and finally in Huntsville where I am a busy mom of three,” Hunter said.
Hunter kicked off her campaign with a reception at Huntsville Botanical Gardens Carriage House on July 26. The reception was a huge success, well attended by supporters and most importantly establishment Republicans in Madison County. Her first marker will be the Republican primary on June 5, 2018.
Hunter could be the second consecutive woman elected to the office but she isn’t looking for help from Governor Kay Ivey.
“There are no coattails in this state. You stand up for what you believe in, you fight for people, what your constituents want, and you talk about what you believe in and that is what Alabamians want. We can accomplish better education, better roads, better health care. Those are hard issues but I like hard issues it’s my nature. I do a lot of persuading. Some days it is about the fight but other times it is consensus building, persuasion, and caucus building.”
As a military lawyer Hunter was a prosecutor, civil law attorney, and medical law consultant.
Education is a huge part of Hunter’s platform. She has sat on the Alabama Community College System Board of Trustees, Athens State Board of Trustees, and the National Association of School Boards.
“Public education needs supporters, we do not have advocates across government.”
Hunter said the office of Alabama’s Lieutenant Governor, currently vacant, “is an issues job. It does not have a robust job description but you define it by what you talk about and work on. I can work with my colleagues in the Senate and across the aisle and across the street with the Governor.”
Hunter was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin while her father Scott played for the Packers. She grew up in south Alabama and graduated from Fairhope High School. She earned a Bryant Scholarship to the University of Alabama where she holds an undergraduate degree in Humanities and a law degree. She also studied abroad for a year during college.
In 2012 she went to work for Intuitive Research and Technology Corporation where she advises and leads the business interests in Compliance, Ethics, and Risk.
Hunter has served overseas. She was in Kuwait on 9/11. She was stationed in Korea when she and her husband Jon married. They now have three children who all attend public schools in Huntsville.
More information is at her website www.maryscotthunter.com
