Barry Saunders: That time Jim Hunt rushed to my aid in another country | Opinion

It is not a point of pride, but just a fact that I’ve been tossed out of, asked to leave or denied entry into more places than I can remember.

The one time I was prevented from entering an entire country, though, Gov. James B. Hunt rushed to my aid.

Did I say “rushed”?

Yep, and that’s precisely what I meant.

In 1994, soon after apartheid ended in South Africa, I attended a press conference at the State Capitol Building on Edenton Street where Gov. Hunt announced that he was planning a 10-day trade mission to South Africa and Zimbabwe that might be beneficial for all.

For instance, we’re regarded by some as the modular home capital of the country and that country needed well-built but inexpensive homes.

I returned giddily to the News & Observer building and went directly to Publisher Frank Daniels’s second floor office.

“Hey Frank, the governor is fixing to go to South Africa, and I’d like to go with him,” I boldly pronounced. Frank, being Frank, asked how much it was going to cost.

I made finding out my mission. I don’t remember the precise amount of the trip, except that it was so much that I steeled myself for a “No!”

When I told Frank the amount, he pondered for about five seconds and said, “I think you ought to take that trip.”

A couple of months later, we — the governor, several aides, private citizens, a college president and representatives of various business entities of the state — flew out of Miami to Cape Town.

I, alone, was stopped and asked at the gate leading to the airport terminal in Cape Town what was my purpose for coming into the country.

“I’m a reporter for the …”

I knew immediately that I was in trouble, because the large armed officer who was questioning me glowered and told me that I would not be allowed into the country.

He called several other equally large and armed officers over as they looked from my passport to me, from me to my passport and talked among themselves. No foreign journalists were being admitted into the country, he repeated, shaking his head with terrifying finality.

That’s when Gov. Hunt, who’d been several yards ahead of me when the kerfuffle began, peeled off from his entourage and came back to find out what was the issue.

“He’s with me,” he said, and voila, I was admitted into the country.

I’d first met Gov. Hunt 10 years earlier, in 1984, when he’d come to Rockingham to campaign while seeking to unseat U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. As publisher of the Richmond County North Star newspaper, I finagled an invitation to the meet, eat & greet – the keyword at the time being “eat.”

I’d have preferred that the governor had been more progressive on some issues, and I suspect that he was. But he also must have known that veering too far politically in either direction would doom his chances to enact his goals.

Hunt, who died last week at age 88, lost a vicious battle with Helms by four points, while Ronald Reagan carried the state at the top of the Republican ticket by 24 points.

As I’m guessing is true of many Tar Heels who traveled to other states during that period, I was often asked how I could live in a state that elected someone like Jesse Helms.

My immediate and true response was that it was a state that also elected people like Jim Hunt.

Barry Saunders was a longtime columnist for the News & Observer.

This story was originally published December 22, 2025 at 9:35 AM.