AROUNDTOWN
Ultimate Achiever
Bonnie McElveen-Hunter has it all: success in the worlds of business,
diplomacy and philanthropy plus a strong and loving family
BY DONNA SHOR
T
he scene might be any
of Washington’s most
glitteringly important charity
soirées. Suddenly, a ripple of
merriment breaks out across the
room.
Hearing the band strike up
an especially bouncy tune, a
glamorously gowned woman
links arms with her neighbors.
Soon the whole table is swaying
from side to side, following her
lead. Drawn by the laughter,
guests at other tables start
swaying, too; soon the ice is
broken.
A small thing perhaps, but a
very typical moment for Mary
Bonneau McElveen-Hunter,
known to all as “Bonnie.” She has
always been a leader.
McElveen-Hunter has headed
the American Red Cross for the past 11
years — the first time in the organization’s
140-year history that a woman holds the
chairman’s post overseeing 32,000 employees
and more than 400,000 volunteers.
They soldier on through fire and f lood,
earthquakes and tsunamis, disasters created
by nature and mankind alike, while striving
to correct long-standing problems and redress
old wrongs.
McElveen-Hunter previously served as
U.S. ambassador to Finland from 2001 to
2003, garnering the respect of the Finnish
people for her high energy and creativity.
While there she organized the Helsinki
Women’s Business Leaders Summit, a model
successfully replicated in other lands. Just
for fun, she arranged a Wild West event
for bandana-wearing Finnish cowboys and
cowgirls who live 5,000 miles away from the
90
Bonnie McElveen-Hunter with her mother Madeline McElveen
and sister, Tweed McElveen-Bogache (Photo by Tony Powell)
Lone Star State.
A devout Presbyterian who regularly
tithes to her church, McElveen-Hunter both
contributes and raises enormous sums for
good causes.
“Bonnie is magic,” Justice Sandra Day
O’Connor says of her friend’s philanthropic
prowess.
McElveen-Hunter had role model parents
who instilled in her a strong sense of duty.
Her late father, Lt. Col. John Thomas
McElveen, f lew 51 missions in the Korean
War and was one of seven men who piloted
UF-2’s over Soviet territory during the Cold
War. Her mother Madeleine, who died in
January, was a lively and endearing woman
who instilled good rules to live by in her
children — including being first on the
dance f loor.
Madeleine McElveen’s pithy “Pearls of
Wisdom” were meant to keep
her family firmly tethered
to reality. They included
“mediocrity is not an option”
and “a peacock today, a feather
duster tomorrow,” her daughter
recalls.
McElveen-Hunter got
an early start in the business
world after she doggedly
completed four years of college
in just three. Hired by a
communications company, she
soon found that only men made
money there because women
weren’t permitted to make
commission sales.
When she asked to sell and
was promptly refused, she went
out on her lunch hour and
brought back a sale they had
been trying in vain to land.
Within two years she owned the company,
which eventually transformed into Pace
Communications, the nation’s largest custom
printing firm. It has continued to grow and
now boasts a gilt-edged client roster that
reads like a litany of Fortune 500 names.
McElveen-Hunter shares homes with her
husband and son in Georgetown, Palm Beach
and Greensboro, N.C. (where her corporate
headquarters are located). Her son, Bynum
Hunter Jr., a graduate of Williams College
and Harvard Business School, has the easy
charm of both parents.
His father, Bynum M. Hunter, is a laidback attorney with a sense of humor who
has been married three times. His easygoing relationship with Bonnie is such that
when they were wed she printed up bumper
stickers that said “Honk if you were married
to Bynum.”
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