Historic preservationist Roy Hunt receives top Rotary Club award

It wasn’t hard for former Rotary Club of Gainesville Past President Greg Young and Harn Museum Director Emerita Rebecca Nagy, also a member of the club board, to come up with the idea of nominating Roy Hunt for the organization’s highest accolade, the Service Above Self Award.

It is a distinguished service award that goes annually to an individual or organization from within the local community that, as the award description states, has “rendered outstanding, dedicated, and unselfish service which has enhanced the quality of life of citizens in this community.

Hunt, 93, a longtime historic preservation activist, certainly fits the bill. That’s what Nagy thought when she nominated Hunt for the award.

“His knowledge and expertise extend beyond his academic field of law to embrace historic preservation, history, art history, archaeology, literature, opera, landscape design and much more,” Nagy wrote.

Hunt received his award on Tuesday at the Rotary Club’s meeting held at the Cade Museum for Creativity & Invention, attended by 90 people. Hunt spoke with Mainstreet to share what the recognition meant to him.

“I  felt incredibly honored and humbled,” Hunt said. “I think it’s int the greatest award given in Gainesville, because of my predecessors, most of whom are deceased now, but I have known the work of this particular Rotary Club since I arrived  (in Gainesville) in 1962.

His “day job” was as a law school professor at the University of Florida College of Law, where he taught for 36 years, beginning in 1962, serving twice as acting dean in 1970 and 1980. But his passion for historic preservation meshed with his skills in teaching law when he and UF Professor Blair Reeves put together a historic preservation law seminar in 1976.

Their students put together what eventually became the original Gainesville Historical Preservation Ordinance in 1978, which still stands today.

But that’s not all. Hunt jokingly refers to himself as “second president” because he served as the head of so many organizations after he helped bring them into being.  He was the second president of the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, after he helped to establish it; he became the Harn Museum’s second president as well as the second president of what eventually became the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.

He was the second president of the Florida Museum of Natural History Associates, and the second person to serve as president of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society. From 2010 to 2025, he held an equivalent post as vice chair of the University of Florida Historic Saint Augustine franchise, which manages the 38 properties UF holds in St. Augustine.

“So, I’m now thinking of myself and my career as being second president,” Hunt joked.

There are times when Hunt comes in first – like in 2022 when the Gainesville Historical Preservation Board decided to institute an annual award. The award was named for Hunt, and he was its first recipient.

His achievements extend to the state and national level, serving on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Board of Advisors and as president of the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation.

But for Hunt, his greatest accomplishment lies in the role he played in securing National Historic Landmark status for the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings homestead at Cross Creek and the Dudley homestead at the Dudley Farm Historic State Farm.

“I consider my two greatest contributions to the community the fact that we now have two of Florida’s 47 national historic landmarks in Alachua County. This is a very big deal,” Hunt said.

Hunt is also a founding member of the Matheson History Museum and continues to support the museum today.

This Renaissance man still loves travel, people, and learning, and he remains engaged with the Institute for Learning in Retirement in Oak Hammock, where he now lives.