Heir to oil fortune spreads Christian teaching via her own radio show
June Hunt talks to callers

Five times a week, June Hunt goes to a Dallas broadcast studio, staying until 1 a.m., taking calls from troubled souls across America on her Christian radio program, Hope in the Night.

As an heir to the Hunt Oil Co. fortune, June Hunt could be doing almost anything she wants, or nothing at all.

But five times a week, she's in a Dallas broadcast studio until 1 a.m., taking calls from troubled souls across America on her Christian radio program, Hope in the Night.

One night, not long ago, she advised a cab driver who had lost purpose, a grandmother distraught over her violent grandson, and a woman whose conversion to Christianity had rocked her marriage.

Another woman called, upset that a male colleague who dresses as a woman was allowed to use the ladies' restroom at work.

"OK, has there been a sex change? Is he a transsexual?" Hunt, 61, asked with the same earnest concern she uses for the occasional suicidal caller.

"I don't know," the woman said. "There's some hair on his chin. You can still tell it's a man."

Shake the family tree of legendary Dallas oil baron H.L. Hunt and an intriguing story is bound to fall. Few beat that of daughter June.

Deep faith and the emotional trauma of her youth (including struggles with Dad) have led her to feel others' pain and try to lessen it. For 20 years, she has devoted her time and much of her wealth to her nondenominational counseling ministry Hope for the Heart.

Through lectures, books, advice sheets, tapes, and radio programs, she pours forth "God's truth for today's problems," addressing everything from eating disorders to salvation.

Her basic message is that those who align their will with God as revealed in Jesus Christ will have not just eternal life but the power to change in this one -- and she is there to help, offering action steps and key Bible verses.

Hunt's ministry employs ordained ministers and licensed counselors, but she is neither, having majored in music at Southern Methodist University.

"I never planned to be doing what I'm doing," she said. "If I'd have known, I probably would have gone and gotten degrees in psychology."

Hope for the Heart has a full-time staff of 43 and occupies one floor of a Dallas office tower. Its nearly $7 million annual budget covers salaries, the purchase of radio time, a phone-in counseling center, and the international distribution of Hunt's writings and tapes.

Not only does Hunt draw no salary, she spends $5 million a year underwriting her ministry, public records show.

"She's emptying her pockets, not lining them," said Doug Kiesewetter, a longtime Hope for the Heart board member.

Her father was famous for striking it very rich in the east Texas oilfields. He also had three sets of children, by three women.

Hunt and the rest of his last set are all driven and accomplished.

Older brother Ray Hunt oversees Hunt Oil. Co., and related businesses. Younger sister Helen LaKelly Hunt, who lives in New Jersey, writes popular books on relationships with therapist husband Harville Hendrix and is a financial backer of women's causes.

So is baby sister Swanee Hunt, who teaches at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, drawing on her time as ambassador to Austria under President Clinton.

Of the siblings, June alone has never married or had children. During a recent lecture, she told her mostly female audience that she'd had proposals from men who'd said God meant them to be together.

"I'm deeply honored," she recalled telling one. "I just know that God has not told me that."

Because Hope for the Heart is largely self-funded by Hunt, it could be considered an ego trip -- the equivalent of vanity publishing. But friends and family say she is among the least vain people they know, and completely committed to the ministry.

She routinely puts in 90-hour weeks, and often pulls all-nighters. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001 and had a double mastectomy, she missed only a few broadcasts of Hope in the Night. She resumed from bed, using remote equipment, friends standing by to help.

"I know of no one who is more dedicated to their work than my sister June," said Ray Hunt.

Hunt also is a magnet for people in pain. Jack McNairy, of her ministry staff, recalled when she went missing after a National Religious Broadcasters banquet.

"I thought, where in the world can she be? Then I remembered there was this lady helping bus the tables who looked like she had been down one of the toughest roads of life," he said. "I went back into the room where we'd had this banquet, and there was June talking to this lady about the Lord."

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