Jim Hunt is in his 16th and final year as North Carolina's governor. His tenure in the Executive Mansion has been remarkable for the quality and quantity of its accomplishments. It would be understandable if Hunt decided to kick back and ride out the next nine months as a lame-duck elder statesman. But that wouldn't be the indefatigable, relentlessly earnest Hunt we have known throughout his public life.

And if the speech he delivered in Southern Pines Monday is any indication, Jim Hunt will not go gentle into that good political night.

Hunt delivered the keynote address at The Pilot's annual Lighthouse Letters Luncheon at the Mid Pines Inn. He spoke with the zeal of an evangelist in pursuit of a goal he established at a March 16 press conference -- a goal that seems audacious even by Hunt's loftily ambitious standards: making North Carolina's public schools first in America by 2010. When this governor looks you in the eye and passionately tells you it can happen, you tend to believe him.

Hunt, of course, won't be in office long enough to see that objective brought to fruition. His short-term aim is to set the state on an irreversible course toward its realization by galvanizing the support of the public, members of the education establishment and political leaders of both parties.

At his every public appearance and in every newspaper, television and radio interview, he seizes on the opportunity to make believers of every person within hearing, seeing and reading distance.

Hunt readily acknowledges the seeming audacity of the challenge he has issued to his fellow Tar Heels. But to Hunt, a goal that is not elevated is no goal at all - just a plan, an item on a to-do list. The governor dreams big. He dares everyone in North Carolina to do likewise for the cause of education excellence.

As Hunt pointed out in the Southern Pines speech, North Carolinians have historically demonstrated a tendency to make impossible dreams come true. In the 1790s, he noted, higher education was accessible only to the privileged few, those whose families were wealthy and influential enough to secure their admission to the elite Ivy League universities of the Northeast.

The people of North Carolina set their sights on the unthinkable: the establishment of a public university. In 1798, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill became the first state university in America to open its doors to students. It was the forerunner of a 16-campus university system that ranks among the best in the world. Why, Hunt asks, can't our public school system rise to the same level of excellence?

Hunt proposes to take North Carolina's schools to the top of the academic heap by raising standards for students, by better preparing younger children to learn with programs such as Smart Start, by making schools safe and orderly, by enhancing teacher and administrator quality, and — perhaps most important — by mobilizing family, community and business support for public schools. Only a sustained, comprehensive, multi-dimensional approach holds promise for getting the job done, he says.

While the governor's eyes are looking to the academic skies, his head is not in the clouds. He knows what he wants the schools to achieve, and he is providing the roadmap for getting there. In making this proposal, he asks a lot of himself, of North Carolinians, of his successor, of the General Assembly, of students, of teachers, of parents, of business and civic leaders.

All the players must function as a team if our schools are to be all they can be. A good start in this direction would be for the five major candidates for governor to jointly declare their support for Hunt's initiative. It will fall to the person who succeeds Hunt to provide the political leadership to make a Hunt's dream a reality. If the next governor does not give the Hunt objective the highest priority, it is doomed to failure.