 Helen LaKelly Hunt: I lived in a big house, and so was aware that my father was a wildcat oilman and had struck oil. My father’s politics were very visible. He believed in the free enterprise system. His sense of stewardship was that he was providing jobs. At the same time, I found a very positive influence in my faith tradition, much of which came from my mother, Ruth Ray Hunt. We were taught to be good stewards.
Tracy Gary: I grew up with five houses, a helicopter, a yellow Rolls Royce and a plane, and the idea of hiding who we were was never a choice for me, because my parents were very comfortable with their wealth and they enjoyed it. But they also gave me great tutelage as a kid. What they said, very emphatically, was, “Look, we may have had tens of millions of dollars, but you are not going to. We want you to learn how to use the money and put it back in the community.” They expected both my brother and me, from the age of 14, to volunteer at least twice the national average, which was about five hours a week, and to work in paying jobs when we were 16. I was a happy teenager, because I saw so many opportunities to be generous. I taught swimming, I baby-sat, I taught reading in the library to low-income and Native American kids. My family started a lot of nonprofits on this little island where we went in the summer. They set up a giving account for me, and my mom would match the gifts I made.
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