The Superior Express -

Another one of this area’s giants fell this week.

All people are important and all are part of the fabric which weaves a community together, but some attract more attention. Lew Hunter was one of those who attracted attention wherever he went.

We don’t have the particulars at this writing, but we learned via the internet on Saturday morning that Lew had died. Since then, we have been fielding telephone calls and emails asking for the particulars. We haven’t learned of the funeral or burial plans but we do know a few things about the man who considered the Guide Rock and Superior area to be his home. Guide Rock was the home of his father, Ray Hunter. His mother was Esther Phillips. Her family had roots in Bostwick. The infamous Jesse James Gang is thought to have stayed during a winter blizzard at the Phillips home.

After Ray Hunter suffered a debilitating stroke, the Hunter family moved to Superior.

As a youngster I remember the Hunter home at Seventh and Dakota had the most Christmas decorations of any home in Superior. I’ve never taken piano lessons but I had friends who shared stories about having Lew’s mother, Esther Hunter, as their piano teacher and helping to put out the Christmas decorations each year.

Esther served as a Republican Party leader in Nuckolls County. She was also an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Thanks to her influence, many DAR print jobs were completed in the Superior Publishing Company print shop.

Mrs. Hunter was proud to be the wife of Ray Hunter and insisted The Express always refer to her as Mrs. Ray L. Hunter and never Esther Hunter.

I stood in the front yard of the Hunter home when Lew and Pamela exchanged wedding vows, something they did in many locations. It was quite the affair with a bagpipe playing and Lew wearing a Scottish kilt.

Another time the Hunters had invited the Blauvelts and others to attend a birthday party at their home. Problem was the Hunters were not home when the event was to start. Their guests were gathered on the porch wondering what to do. Someone in the group knew where to find a key and they unlocked the house. When the Hunters arrived to find the house full of guests, Pamela handled it all in stride. She hollered for Lew and told him to go to the Dairy Queen and get an ice cream cake.

After his mother’s death, Lew had a housekeeper maintain the family home at Seventh and Dakota. When Lew and Pam announced their plans to move to Superior, the housekeeper expected they would be moving to his mother’s house and she moved out but not before the Hunters had purchased another Victorian house in which they planned to make their home.

To handle the influx of people coming to Superior for his annual screen writing colonies, Lew adapted the second home to house his screenwriting classes and provide bunk space for many of those attending.

That house had long been home to members of the Day family and to this day it is known as the Day House.

Though invited to do so, I never attended a screenwriting class but I visited most of the colonies and wrote stories about the students.

When the annual Lady Vestey Victorian Festival lacked a chairman and it looked like the festival would not be held that year, Lew stepped up to the plate and offered to be the organizer.

As part of the screenwriting colonies, Lew usually rented the Superior Chamber of Commerce trolley and provided tours for his students. When the bus that was substituted for the original homemade trolley, was sold without Lew’s knowlege, he tried to buy it.

Lew was a friend to all and his checkbook was always open to support local causes. He was particularly concerned about the youth of the community and illegal drug use.

I remember Lew walking about Superior barefooted with a parrot riding on his shoulder.

From Wikipedia, I learned the following about Lew:

Lewis R. Hunter  was born July 18, 1935, and died Jan. 6,2023. He was an American screenwriter, author and educator and was chairman emeritus and professor of screenwriting at the UCLA Department of Film and Television. More than half of the half of the Oscar winning scripts produced in the past 20 years have been written by students of Hunter. His former students and advocates include such people as Adrienne Parks, Allison Anders, David Koepp, Mike Werb, Sacha Gervasi, Dan Pyne, David Titcher, James Dalessandro, Diane Saltzberg, Michael Colleary, Don Mancini, Kathy Stumpe, Darren Star, Alexander Payne  and Tom Shadyac. Other students include Chuck Loch, Paige Macdonald, Robert Wolfe, Joel Schumacher, Megan Steinbeck, Robert Roy Poole, Lon Diamond, Laurie Hutlzer, Pamela Gray, William Missouri Downs, Robin Russin, Brad Silberling, Greg Widen, and many others. 

Steven Spielberg called Hunter “the best screenwriting teacher going” Hunter had a bachelor’s degree and honorary doctorate from Nebraska Wesleyan University and had master’s degrees from other schools. He worked extensively in television writing TV movies and series such as The Sound of Love  and The Yellow Rose. He was employed by all the major networks of his time.

Hunter joined the UCLA faculty in 1979 as a professor in screenwriting. In 1988, he was made chairman of the department. He retired from UCLA in 2000. He taught one class each winter semester from 2001 to 2015.

Hunter helped to found the American Screenwriters Association and was inducted into its Hall of Fame.in 2014.

In 1998, nine of the ten top-grossing films were written by graduates of UCLA’s screenwriting MFA program. His bestselling book on screenwriting is entitled Screenwriting 434.

A 75-minute documentary film, “Once in a Lew Moon,” has been shown at the Crest Theatre.

It tells the story of Hunter’s early life, deep-rooted in Nebraska, and his transition from a Nebraska farm boy to Hollywood fame, and his journey back home to his beloved Midwest. The documentary portrays his love of the writing craft and writers and the reciprocal love they feel for him.

The 75-minute documentary was produced and directed by another son of this area, Lonnie Senstock, a native of the Deweese-Fairfield area.

The documentary is a testimonial from former students, writers, directors, producers and actors themselves of their writing experiences with Lew Hunter, who was known for his high-spirited great passion for life, his love for his fellow man, and his extraordinary talent.

He was praised for being a perceptive person who knows how the craft works, for being inspiring, for always being positive, for helping others believe in their own potential, for always being available to help anyone in need, and for giving hope through all his emails by signing off with his famous slogan “Write on!”

Hunter attended the Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri, then Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln. Still following the dream in his heart, he then went to the University of California at Los Angeles, studying the film industry and receiving his second master’s degree.

In 1956 he got his break in the film industry — the first of many jobs he would hold with the NBC television network. Through the years, he worked diligently, climbing the ladder — working at four television networks at once for some time.

By 1971, Hunter had written his first screenplay, “If Tomorrow Comes.” “Fallen Angel” then appeared in 1981, and “Desperate Lives” followed in 1985. 

After returning to Superior in 1999, his first local project was the formation of a drug awareness program.  He got retired Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne to help inform students of the dangers of illegal drugs. A segment is shown in the documentary of Osborne and Hunter speaking in 2007 at Sandy Creek School near Fairfield.

In 2001, Hunter brought Hollywood to Nebraska by establishing the Superior Writers’ Colony, a two-week workshop in which he taught the craft to aspiring writers from all over the United States.

Those colonies were not only good for the students but they were good for Superior businesses as the students spent freely while here. They were frequent customers of this newspaper’s office supply department and some purchased subscriptions to the newspaper.

One even used our Mankato office as a quiet retreat in which to write while attending the colony. Some of the students returned to Superior for multiple colonies.

Hunter told his students, “Be determined to succeed and never give up, follow your heart and don’t give in to the word ‘no,’ for it’s just a word on the way to yes.”

His life was an example for just that. He never gave in.