[1][2][3] He was an initiated member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity from Butler University.
[4] He represented Madison County, Indiana, in the Indiana House of Representatives from 1943 to 1944,[2] and served in an infantry unit in the United States Army in the European theatre of World War II, from 1943 to 1946,[1] receiving a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star Medal.
[2] Still a member of the state legislature, in 1944 he was briefly "furloughed from the Army to attend a special legislative session".
[1] Hunter "distinguished himself as a progressive civil law judge", who "championed the rights of Indiana's working men and women", while also being viewes as "a conservative in criminal cases".
[2][3] On October 14, 1941, Hunter married Violet Oemler of Covington, Kentucky,[5] with whom he had a daughter and a son.