John E. Hunt
Armer E. White
John Hunt Jr.
Armer White and John Hunt Sr. have been best friends longer than most Americans have been alive, and throughout their 45 years as buddies, they have been forging business deals with stunning success.
This year, instead of relaxing during their octogenarian years and reveling in their good fortunes, White and Hunt, joined by Hunt's son, John Hunt Jr., are developing a vision for FSU's School of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts.
And they're putting their energy and their money in the vision.
White and the Hunts have given FSU 10 acres of land, valued at $500,000, beside a state-of the-art recording studio in Gadsden County. The parcel is part of 10/90 Commerce Park, a White/Hunt development at the intersection of Interstate 10 and U.S. Highway 90, nine miles from FSU.
"Florida State would be perfect as a hi-tech tenant in our development," said Hunt Jr., president, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Hunt Insurance Group and vice-president of 10/90.
The three families see several possibilities for the use of the land. It's ideally located for all sorts of renewed recording activities at the former Pegasus Studios, which is being refurbished by FSU. The land also is a natural setting as a back lot for movie-making by FSU film students.
Or the acreage could be a center for film-industry research where companies like IBM and Kodak set up shop and use skilled labor forces supplied by FSU students.
"All this just began to fit together very well," said Hunt Jr.
The land donation next to the recording studio is the first step in the realization of the third mission mandated by the Legislature for the school, said Raymond Fielding, dean of the School of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts.
Now that the motion picture and television divisions of the school are well-established, attention is focusing on the recording arts.
The enthusiasm White and Hunt Sr., have for their development is inescapable.
Like mother chickens hovering over incubating eggs, they drive through 10/90 daily, monitoring construction and surveying the progress on the new companies settling on the sprawling acreage companies like Fox 49, Ajax Construction and Datamax.
"We want to bring some really top-notch jobs here for our college
graduates," said White, 10/90's president.