Guy Hunt

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Guy Hunt, who in 1987 became Alabama's first Republican governor since Reconstruction but six years later became the state's first chief executive removed from office for a criminal conviction, died yesterday in Birmingham. He was 75.

Family spokesman Mark McDaniel said Hunt died at Trinity Medical Center. He was being treated the last couple years for cancer and was frail when he had gall bladder surgery in late November.

The former Amway salesman, farmer and Primitive Baptist preacher was dismissed as a country bumpkin by some observers when he entered the governor's race in 1986. But he pulled a spectacular upset when internal feuding split the Democratic Party, sending 56 percent of voters into Hunt's column.

He became the first Republican elected to lead Alabama since 1872. He is credited with filling enough committees, boards and other offices with Republicans that he helped end Democratic Party dominance of Alabama politics.

"That was the beginning of the power of the Republican Party in Alabama, and Democrats did it to themselves," said Democrat Lowell Barron, an influential state senator and frequently Hunt's political ally.

Hunt was re-elected in 1990, but halfway through his second term, he was convicted of violating the state ethics law for misusing 1987 inaugural funds and was kicked out of office. He later was pardoned but could never restart his political career.

Survivors include his second wife, Anne; son, Keith Hunt; and three daughters, Pam Hunt, Sherrie Williams and Lynn Harris.