April 22, 1993

Gov. Guy Hunt, the first Republican governor since the end of Reconstruction, was found guilty on ethics charges and removed from office. Convicted of using $200,000 from a 1987 inaugural fund, Hunt received a sentence of 1,000 hours of community service, a $211,000 fine, and five years’ probation. Maintaining his innocence by claiming that he used the money to repay an earlier campaign loan, the former governor eventually paid off the entirety of his fine with help from sympathetic Republicans and Democrats alike. In 1998, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles controversially pardoned Hunt on grounds of innocence and Hunt unsuccessfully campaigned for governor later that year.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

President George Bush and Alabama Gov. Guy Hunt (center) are greeted by Marshall’s sixth center director Thomas J. Lee upon their arrival at Redstone Arsenal (RSA) airfield on June 20, 1990. (NASA, Wikimedia)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.