PINNELL HUNTER

SIKESTON -- Funeral Mass for William Pinnell Hunter Sr. of Sikeston will be held at 10:30 a.m. today at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church. The Revs. Amel Shibley and Robert Schumacher will officiate, with burial in Evergreen Cemetery at New Madrid.

Nunnelee Funeral Chapel is in charge of arrangements.

Hunter, 85, died Thursday, July 25, 1996, at Bunker Hill Ranch Resort near Mountain View, of an apparent heart attack.

He was born Aug. 5, 1910, at New Madrid, son of Samuel Latham and Laura Pinnell Hunter. He and Frances Magill were married Aug. 26, 1936, in New Madrid.

Hunter attended New Madrid High School, and was a 1933 graduate of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. He was a member of Notre Dame's Sorin Society.

He worked for his father in levee construction, and was involved in building several of the mainline levees on the Mississippi River in Southeast Missouri.

Hunter moved to Sikeston from New Madrid in 1941. He was a landowner, farmer, cattle producer, and operated the Hunter Gin Co. near Bell City 35 years. He was a member of St. Francis Church and the Laymen's League of the White House Jesuit Retreat in St. Louis.

He had served on the Bank of New Madrid Board of Directors since 1934. He was a past president of Missouri Cotton Producers Association, and former member of Mid-South Ginner's Association.

Hunter was a member and vice president of the Board of Supervisors of Little River Drainage District from December 1957 to September 1994. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers presented him the Commander's Award Nov. 22, 1994, for his efforts in coordination and advancement of flood control drainage in Southeast Missouri.

Survivors include his wife; three sons, William Hunter Jr. of Memphis, Tenn., Dr. Samuel Hunter of Sikeston, Stephen Hunter of St. Louis; a daughter, Dale Morse of Guilford, Vt.; two brothers, Furg and Sam Hunter Jr. of New Madrid; three sisters, Evelyn Rost of New Madrid, Harriette McCrate of Portageville, Ruth Eng of Tivoli, N.Y.; 14 grandchildren, and a great-grandson.