John Hunter
By Ann Bond
John Hunter was born January 17, 1939 in Tampa, Florida and passed away
on April 22, 2019. John was a graduate of the University of Florida and a U.S.
Army Captain in the 118th Airborne unit from 1961-68. He was a helicopter
pilot and served in Vietnam.
While visiting friends in Atlantic Beach, Florida in 1985, he met a certain
lady from Tybee Island and fell in love with both her and Tybee. Following
a three year long distance romance, John left Tampa and moved to Tybee,
bought a run-down property called the “Animal House” and renovated it
into a restaurant and inn. “Hunter House” opened in 1989 as a fine dining
restaurant which was unheard of at the time and John lived on the third
floor with Miss Kitty, his cat he brought from Tampa. He loved meeting and
greeting his customers, socializing, and making friends. He always tried to
accommodate his local customers and went out of his way to call certain
Tybee husbands to remind them to make Valentine’s Day reservations so as
not to be in the doghouse with their wives. One of his customers owned a
helicopter and convinced John to renew his pilot’s license—and he did. He
loved flying, especially over his beloved Tybee Island.
He devoted 22 years as the proprietor of Hunter House and retired in 2010.
After a year sabbatical he spent one summer working as a Tybee Beach
Patrol officer. He enjoyed being on the beach, so that was right up his alley.
He also worked at Kroger on Wilmington Island before he became ill.
John really enjoyed his social life on Tybee, making many friends along the
way. He was a people person and a true southern gentleman. He loved music
and made personalized cassettes for the restaurant and some very special
love songs for his Lady. He continued his romance with that certain lady until
his death.
16 TYBEE BEACHCOMBER | JUNE 2019
Behind the Tape…
By Sgt. Richard Dascall
Welcome back again everybody! By the time you read this, we
should be all the way through Beach Bum and Orange Crush,
getting geared up for the 4th of July. Time to start enjoying the
weekdays, because at this point the weekends are so crowded
out here you can barely move.
This month I have a good story for you guys that I almost
completely forgot ever happened. I’m sorry in advance that this
one isn’t necessarily gritty, I just thought it was a funny one.
About nine years ago, I was still a jailer working in our old
building. It was the middle of summer on a weeknight, and for
the most part pretty quiet. But even on those quiet nights, we
know that someone from some part of Georgia we’ve never
heard of is going to be blackout drunk on some part of this
island. Well, on this night the gentleman was about 5 ft. 5 with
an amazing mullet. After not being able to figure out where he
was staying, our officers arrested him for Public Intoxication so
that he could sober up.
When he got to the jail it was pretty clear that he was in a
blackout. After yelling at us and threatening to beat us up for
about two hours, he finally passed out. Several hours later, this
guy woke up, much more coherent than he had been, and started
asking where he was and how he got there. Seeing the
opportunity, we began to tell this guy he was in Pensacola. He
didn’t quite believe us at first.
At about 8am, we were just getting ready to send this guy on his
way, when our new Chief walked in and asked what we were
laughing about. We told him we had convinced the guy in the
back that he was in Florida. All he said to us is, “Oh God, let me
go fix this.” So thinking we had done something really bad, we
went to listen to the Chief fix our mess. Chief got back there and
said, “Hey sir, I’m the Chief here. So do you have any money to
get a bus back to Georgia?” At this point the guy started freaking
out because he couldn’t imagine how he had gotten to Florida
from Tybee Island.
After this the joke had clearly run its course, we told him he was
still on Tybee and even gave him a ride back to his hotel. Like I
said, this isn’t a gritty police story, but we still laugh about this
one whenever someone remembers it.
The last thing I want to do is thank some of the people who
helped us with Orange Crush this year. I know I’m going to forget
some people so I apologize up front. I’ll make sure to get you
guys in a future story. So a HUGE thank you to Tybee IGA,
Spanky’s, Fannies, Chatham County Police Department, Chatham
County Sheriff’s Office, Georgia State Patrol, Savannah State
University Police, Chatham-Savannah CNT, and all our great
volunteers who are always willing to come help us with these
events. Without the help from all these people, these events
wouldn’t run as smoothly as they do. So thank you again and see
you next month.