Robert M Hunt

Maurice E. Hunt, 86, the former Mayor of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., died Friday at War Memorial Hospital in Sault Ste. Marie, where he had been fighting cancer since Thanksgiving. Mr. Hunt was mayor for three terms in the 1940s. He attended the University of Michigan in the 1920s and was a lifelong Michigan resident. He was appointed Michigan`s public service commissioner, serving from 1951 to 1957, and headed the state`s Consumer Protection Division from 1964 to 1969. Mr. Hunt was one of the early planners of the Mackinac Bridge, which connects Michigan`s lower and upper peninsulas. He also was one of the founders of Lake Superior State University, a school established in 1946 in Sault Ste. Marie. Mr. Hunt`s son, Robert, was president of The Chicago Tribune from 1974 to 1979. He was publisher of the New York Daily News from 1979 to 1984 and retired in 1985. He lives in Cos Cob, Conn. Other survivors include two sisters, Joan Nilsson of Seattle, and Priscilla Fowler of San Clemente, Calif. Services for Mr. Hunt will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Hovie Funeral Home in Sault Ste. Marie.