Hunter Monroe Painter

HUNTER MONROE PAINTER. Surely it is a worthy, ambition in life to be helpful to others, and who can be more truly helpful than the able, conscientious teacher, who awakens youth to the value of knowledge, points the way, and through the influence of his own personality inspires his pupils to seek it. Many educated, scholarly men, have, fortunately, devoted their lives to imparting the instruction they themselves have found necessary to the full enjoyment of civilized life. Among the younger educators of Wythe County, none stand in higher esteem personally or professionally than Hunter Monroe Painter, Bachelor of Arts, principal of the Wytheville High School and a. veteran of the World war.

Mr. Painter was born on his father’s farm near Troutville, Botetourt County, Virginia, March 6, 1893, and is a son of Benton D. and Sallie C. (Moomaw) Painter, and a grandson of John and Catherine (Abbott) Painter. The grandmother was born in Craig County, Virginia, and the grandfather in Montgomery County, Virginia, in 1807. He was n young man when he located in Botetourt County, a gunsmith by trade, and later acquired a, fine landed estate near Troutville. His people had come from Pennsylvania and settled early in Virginia.

Benton D. Painter was born near Troutville, Virginia, May 6, 1856, and has practically spent his whole life on his farm situated eight miles northwest of Troutville. He married Sallie. C. Moomaw, who was born May 9, 1857, at Daleville, Botetourt County, Virginia, and they have reared a family of seven children: Ethan A., who is division superintendent of the schools of Botetourt County, resides at Fincastle; Margaret S., who is the wife of William G. Jones, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina; John C. and Joseph E., twins, the former of whom is an electrical engineer at Salt Lake City, Utah, and the latter is on the home farm; Hunter Monroe; Lenna M., who is the wife of A. Graham Crockett, Jr., a bookkeeper in a business house at Max Meadows, Virginia; and Benjamin D., an electrical engineer at Bluefield, West Virginia, who is a veteran of the World war, having been in service one year, stationed at Camp Lee, Virginia, a line sergeant in an infantry regiment.

Hunter Monroe Painter attended the public schools in Botetourt County through boyhood, and was graduated from the Asbury High School at Haymakertown in the class of 1911, afterward entering Roanoke College, from which institution he was graduated in 1916, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. On September 21, 1917, he enlisted in the United States Infantry for service in the World war, and was sent to Camp Lee as a member of Company L, Three Hundred and Eighteenth Regiment, and was trained there in the Third Officers’ Training Camp and received his commission of second lieutenant on June 1, 1918, and was honorably discharged on December 5, 1918. Prior to this, however, he had had some teaching experience, during the year 1916-17 having taught science and being athletic coach at Florence, South Carolina.

During the year following his return from Camp Lee, Mr. Painter remained at home on the farm. He attended summer sessions t the University of Virginia in 1921-22, in 1920-11 serving as principal of the Asbury High School at Haymakertown, from which he had been graduated in 1911. In September, 1921, he came to Wytheville as principal of the high school here, a position he has adequately filled ever since. He has under his supervision fifteen teachers and 635 pupils, and to all of these he is a figure of authority, competent, inspiring and dignified.

Mr. Painter is a. member of the Virginia State Teachers’ Association, and is a deacon in the Mount Union Presbyterian Church in Botetourt County. He is a member of Botetourt Post No. 105, American Legion, and has served as historian of the post. He is unmarried and makes his home with his parents unless his field of work is too distant. In political sentiment he is a democrat.