Lester Callaway Hunt, Sr. (July 8, 1892June 19, 1954), was an American Democratic politician from the state of Wyoming. Hunt was the first to be elected to two consecutive terms as Wyoming's governor, serving as its 19th Governor from January 4, 1943, to January 3, 1949. In 1948, he was elected by an overwhelming margin to the U.S. Senate, and began his term on January 3, 1949. Hunt supported a number of federal social programs and advocated for federal support of low-cost health and dental insurance policies. He also supported a variety of programs proposed by the Eisenhower administration following the Republican landslide in the 1952 elections, including the abolition of racial segregation in the District of Columbia, and the expansion of Social Security. An outspoken opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist campaign, Hunt challenged McCarthy and his senatorial allies by championing a proposed law restricting Congressional immunity and allowing individuals to sue members of Congress for slanderous statements. In June 1953, Hunt's son was arrested in Washington, D.C., on charges of soliciting sex from an undercover male police officer (homosexual acts were prohibited by law at the time). Several Republican senators, including McCarthy, threatened Hunt with prosecution of his son and wide publication of the event unless he abandoned plans to run for re-election and resigned immediately, which Hunt refused to do. His son was convicted and fined on October 6, 1953. On April 15, 1954, Hunt announced his intention to run for re-election. He changed his mind, however, after McCarthy renewed the threat to use his son's arrest against him. On June 19, Hunt died by suicide in his Senate office; his death dealt a serious blow to McCarthy's image and was one of the factors that led to his censure by the Senate later in 1954. Early years Born in Isabel in Edgar County in eastern Illinois, Hunt visited Wyoming for the first time as a semi-professional baseball player. He graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University and then worked as a railroad switchman to put himself through dental school at Saint Louis University. After graduating in 1917, he moved to Lander, Wyoming, and established a practice. He joined the United States Army Dental Corps when the United States entered World War I, and served as a lieutenant from 1917 to 1919. After postgraduate study at Northwestern University in 1920, Hunt resumed his practice in Lander. He was president