Patricia Hunte (nee Wilson) was a TV News Anchor and reporter in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1982 to 1992. For those first five years, she was the weekend News Anchor and, for the last five years, a prime-time News Anchor of two shows daily, Monday through Friday.
Born in North Carolina, she was raised, educated and worked professionally in Virginia and Buffalo, NY, before moving to Atlanta. Her parents were farmers in the village community of Cascade, near Danville, VA.
She is the widow of the late West Indian cricketer Sir Conrad Hunte. She and Conrad first met in Roanoke, VA, introduced by Dr George and Mrs Bernice Lemon in May 1979. They met again at Caux, Switzerland, the following year.
‘I knew nothing about Conrad’s cricket career,’ she says. ‘I only knew about his personal character from a one hour talk with him and Glen Woodbury in Roanoke. He left an amazing impression on me, but I didn’t focus on it until I ran into him the second time in Caux.’
He made no romantic moves toward Patricia at that time. She had just arrived in Caux that day. After a meeting in the Great Hall, she walked towards her room to retire for the night. She ran into Conrad in the hallway and said, ‘Conrad Hunte, I met you a year ago in Roanoke, Virginia.'
It was 9pm and she was tired, having travelled by train all day from Zurich to Caux.
The next morning, she was awakened by the Word, she believed was from God, that ‘Conrad Hunte will one day be your husband.’ She sat straight up and said out loud, ‘Conrad Hunte!’ As she lay back down God reasoned with her by saying, ‘But look at his character.’
‘By morning that was all I could think of. I went to George and Berni Lemon and told them before breakfast. I had one meal with Conrad, George and Berni, and a young man and a lady from the Netherlands.’
Earlier in Caux she performed an original, chronological medley of African American History through till 1971, the year she wrote it. George and Berni Lemon were touched by it and invited her to travel with them to Poland in 1978. She performed it in 13 Polish cities to sell-out crowds, receiving lengthy standing ovations everywhere she performed it.
She and Conrad never discussed courtship or marriage until two and a half years after their Caux meeting, when he came to visit her in Buffalo, New York. He told her all about his life in a monologue that ended with: ‘I’ve told you all these things because I’d like you to be my wife.’ She was initially in shock. They had little courtship before getting married.
They married on 18 May 1982 in a civil ceremony at the Justice of the Peace in Buffalo, NY. They were married in a religious ceremony before God, family and friends on her parents’ farm on 26 June 1982, with some 600 guests.
Conrad travelled to South Africa in 1991, where he was invited to train young Africans from poor communities in cricket. In September 1992 Patricia and their three daughters joined him there. Their two youngest daughters returned to the USA in 1998 after seven years. Their oldest daughter, Roberta, spent nine years in Johannesburg where she graduated from university.
Conrad returned to his home country of Barbados in 1999 after nine years in South Africa, while Patricia went back to Atlanta. Conrad was knighted in Barbados and won the presidency of the Barbados Cricket Association.
Vising Australia later that year, he suffered a heart attack and died aged 67. Patricia now lives in Portland, Oregon, and has seven grandchildren, including four foster grandchildren.
