VALDOSTA — Mildred Morse Hunter was remembered by friends and family Thursday as a person of gentle strength and intrepid spirit at the Mildred M. Hunter Community Center.

Pastor Veon Williams opened the memorial service by thanking God for giving the community Hunter and the lessons she provided.

Hunter died June 25 at the age of 86.

Percy Chastang Jr. said that everyone has a Hunter story and encouraged the audience to share their stories with each other in the coming days and weeks.

She was one of the few people, Chastang said, who he could have a conversation with about sports and grassroots organizing.

Sen. Tim Golden, D-Valdosta, said Hunter and Ruth Council are two people he could never tell no.

Golden said Hunter served as a friend, mentor and teacher to him. On the morning The Valdosta Daily Times ran a story about Hunter’s passing, Golden said he was shocked to see a story with him also on the front page.

“I couldn’t help but think (that) she must be thinking ‘I can’t believe I’m on the front page of the paper with that knucklehead former student of mine,’” he said.

Golden then referred to a quote by Ted Kennedy that he made during the memorial service for his brother Bobby Kennedy.

“He was a person who saw the wrong and tried to right it and saw suffering and tried to heal it,” Golden said.

She displayed those attributes, he said.

“Hunter was a great, great Valdostan,” Golden said.

Mayor John Fretti said Hunter was a person he heard about before he ever met her.

She didn’t question Fretti when she first met him, he said, but rather took his hand and looked straight into his eyes.

Hunter emitted a spirit, an inner strength, an inner beauty that she shared with him, Fretti said.

“She had an inner peace that got all over me very quickly,” he said.

These inner qualities resonated outwardly and Fretti said he only hopes to have a fraction of the inner serenity that she had.

“She knew she was here in this life to give to others,” Fretti said. “Hunter wanted us to be a community that had no jurisdictional boundaries, no racial boundaries, a place where everyone knew they were brothers and sisters in what we did.”

The community’s goal is to carry that forward.

Mayor Pro Tem Willie Head was one of Hunter’s students at Pinevale and became visibly choked up as he recalled the impact Hunter had on his life.

As a ninth grader, Head got into trouble for pulling a girl’s hair and lied to Hunter about what he was doing.

She called Head up to the front of the class, gently, but firmly took his arm and asked him exactly what he was doing. Head confessed and, because he lied, was paddled by Hunter.

Head got three licks and said she told him “That this is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you.”

He never got in trouble in school again, Head said.

“I am so grateful I passed her way,” he said.

City Manager Larry Hanson said the day the community center opened he was standing on the court with Hunter when she was tasked with shooting the first basket.

Hanson said Hunter turned to him and told him, “You have to help me make this.”

The memory, of four hands putting that basketball through the hoop, is one he will cherish forever, Hanson said.

Hunter’s daughter, Cheryl Hunter, then received an award on Hunter’s behalf presented by the Southside Library Boosters for her work with the Juneteenth Celebration.

Jolly Twelve Club member Artie Marshall said she knew Hunter for more than 40 years.

The Jolly Twelve was a social club founded in 1946. Hunter was the last charter member. When a charter member left the club they selected another woman to take her place.

Now Marshall and others are tasked with carrying on Jolly Twelve’s legacy, she said.

Daughter of Ariah and Falevia Morse, Hunter was the second of four children.

Her parents operated a grocery store on Valdosta Magnolia Street, which opened in 1918.

She was married to Gaines Hunter for 42 years.

Hunter graduated from Fort Valley State University with a bachelor of science degree in elementary education and a master of education degree in elementary education from Valdosta State University.

She worked with the Lowndes County and Valdosta City schools for 38 years as an English and world history teacher and media specialist.

Hunter’s funeral service is today at 11 a.m. at the Macedonia First Baptist Church, 715 J.L. Lomax Drive.

In lieu of flowers, everyone is asked to contribute to the Mildred Morse Hunter Scholarship Fund, c/o Macedonia First Baptist Church, 715 J.L. Lomax Drive, Valdosta, Ga., 31601.