92-year-old WWII Navy veteran still making waves in the workforce

“I’ve never been able to sit still.”

That might be a bit of an understatement.

Howard Hunter, a 92-year-old World War II veteran has had a wide variety of jobs since he left the Navy in 1946, and he’s still at it.

He’s been a DISH Network satellite TV retailer for over 20 years — new installations, service calls and everything in between. “People say I shouldn’t be climbing ladders, but I do,” Hunter said with a smile.

“I’ve always been what I call an electronic junkie,” he said. He sold his first television set back in 1946 at Montgomery Ward, and he had a TV repair shop when he lived in Venango, Nebraska. As a young man, he also had a passion for accounting, but, as it turns out, he wasn’t a radio operator or a bookkeeper during the war. He was a mechanic.

It was April 13, 1945, when Hunter was sworn into the United States Navy. Less than two weeks before his 18th birthday, the young man wanted the choice of which branch of the military he would join before he was drafted as an 18-year-old.

He picked the Navy. “I felt it was my duty to serve.”

Hunter’s brother was stationed in the South Pacific with the Marines at the time, and their father was in World War I in addition to a great-grandfather who served in the Civil War.

The day after graduating from College View High School in Lincoln, Nebraska, Hunter got his orders, and active duty began June 13.

He left behind his high school sweetheart, Betty, to train at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Michigan and then in San Diego, California, as a diesel mechanic with the Navy Seabees.

Meanwhile, Howard and 17-year-old Betty got engaged in August (promising her father they would be engaged for two years on account of her young age), and not long after, World War II ended when the Japanese surrendered on Sept. 2, 1945.

Hunter’s military service, however, was just getting started. He was stationed at Treasure Island in California’s San Francisco Bay.

For six months, his job was to help transport sailors from their watercraft into San Francisco on a smaller vessel. “It was good duty, but it was rough,” said Hunter. He was on the night shift, and the conditions on the water were not always favorable, not to mention many of the sailors went into San Francisco sober and came back drunk. “We never lost anyone,” said Hunter, even if the “drunken sailors” did go overboard on occasion.

The next six months was the best duty, according to Hunter. He was still transporting people to and from San Francisco, but this time it was during the day and he was helping officers on the admiral’s barge. “They were great people,” he said.

Not only was he charged with the safety of the people, he was the one maintaining the engines on the boats.

In the years since being discharged from the Navy in August 1946 as a Fireman 1st Class, Hunter has been a firm believer in military service.

“The discipline is one of the most important things,” he said, noting that in the military, servicemen and women don’t question authority like many people do in today’s culture.

Learning how to receive and obey orders is another thing Hunter learned in the Navy. “Do what you’re told to do when you’re told to do it!” he said.

The military also taught him about responsibility, self esteem, respect and patriotism.

On top of all that, he also learned a trade. “I could have become a diesel mechanic, but I didn’t want to.” However, Hunter admits he used those skills to work on his own cars after getting out of the service. “It didn’t hurt me any.”

Hunter spent four years in nonactive duty with the Navy Reserve. He also studied at Nebraska Wesleyan University, as well as the National Business College in Lincoln, where he graduated with an accounting degree.

And he hadn’t forgotten Betty! The two got married at age 20 and 19 on June 23, 1947.

Hunter used his accounting knowledge at a CPA firm in Lincoln for six years. He also worked at a firm in Sacramento, California, for about four years in the early 1970s.

Thirty years of his career was spent at Dudden Elevator in Venango, with 15 of those years as the general manager.

Management can be a challenge, said Hunter. “But I feel like I get along with people quite well. A happy employee is a good employee.” It’s also important to keep the customers happy while still making a profit for the company, he said. “Do right by them, and they’ll do right by you.”

In 1988, Hunter retired and moved to Holyoke in 1989. He spent four years remodeling their home on South Morlan Avenue and even sold skylights until 1996. (Remember, he’s never been able to sit still.)

That year he became a local retailer for DISH Network — a job he did not only in Holyoke but also in Tucson, Arizona, where the Hunters spent their winters.

H & B Home Service stands for Howard and Betty, and they pride themselves on the personal, one-on-one service they can offer their customers in northeast Colorado and southwest Nebraska.

Betty answers the phone and makes appointments while Howard spends his time working on three to five service calls and two or three upgrades per week in addition to about four new installations every month.

“I am quite handy; I’ll admit it,” he said. “I enjoy the job.”

The remote controls have proven to be one of the biggest challenges in this line of work. They’re too complicated for older people, said Hunter.

The Hunters try to shop local, knowing the importance of a good small-town economy. “The small retailer is struggling,” said Hunter. “Companies here are competing against the big companies.”

Yet he still sees Holyoke as a progressive town. “It has a great future.”

And in regard to H & B Home Service, this WWII veteran is still working hard at something he loves. “If you were to boil it down to one thing,” said Hunter, “It’s the people.”

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