BY JIM CARNEY

Beacon Journal staff writer

Today, he is a Republican, leaning toward Pat Buchanan and devoted to Jesus.

Jim Lunsford's ties to the Communist Party are such a thing of the past that he missed last week's news of the death in New York City of 90-year-old Gus Hall, who ran for president four times as a Communist.

Jesus is my savior now, said Lunsford, a 53-year-old Lakemore resident, who teaches social studies at Cuyahoga Hills Juvenile Correction Institution in Highland Heights.

Lunsford, a Communist for more than 20 years, ran unsuccessfully as an independent for Akron City Council Ward 3 in a special election in 1976. He got only 68 votes, or 3.6 percent of the total.

In 1993, he lost in a race for a seat on the Springfield Local School Board in 1993, finishing sixth in a field of 11. At that time he was a registered Democrat.

Today, as a registered Republican, he believes Texas Gov. George W. Bush may be too liberal in his politics.

Lunsford said he is praying about how to vote Nov. 7.

The Alliance native said his feelings against the Vietnam War led him to became involved with the Communist Party in the first place.

I was an anti-war protester, he said.

Lunsford joined the party in 1973. At that time, he said, about 15 Akron Communists met at different people's homes each month.

Hall came to Akron in 1976 during his run for president to speak to the party faithful, he said.

I was a Marxist, Lunsford said. I bought into the class struggle. . . . Workers were being exploited.

After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, Lunsford said local Communists actually felt positive.

It didn't bother me at all, he said. This was our chance to go off on our own.

But by early 1996, the Communist Party had lost its allure.

I was disenchanted with the party, he said.

In February of that year, he quit the party.

Later that year, something happened to him that he never expected as his metamorphosis continued.

The Lord grabbed ahold of me, he said.

Jesus shook me and put me on a new path, he said.

Lunsford, who is married and has three children and two grandchildren, attended a Methodist Church as a child.

In late 1996, after dinner one evening, he drove to a Christian bookstore and bought a King James Bible and began reading the book for the first time.

It wasn't a flash, like Paul had, said Lunsford, who also teaches acting at the Kent State University Stark Campus. But it was just as potent. It took over two to three months.

When he began to read the Bible, he said, he couldn't put the book down.

He began attending a United Methodist church with his wife, Mary Alice.

Within a very short time, I was very serious, he said.

The Lord, he said, drew me to Him.

Now, he and his family are in the process of becoming members of the Riverside Alliance Church on South Main Street in Coventry Township.

He is just as surprised as anyone at what has happened to him, which he described as being born again.

Kaufman said Lunsford's story is probably more unusual than that of others who have left the Communist Party.

While there is no formal organization in the Akron area, the 73-year-old Kaufman said there are still some Communists in the Akron area.

He believes there has been a surge of interest in the party among young people and many are finding information about the party on the Internet.

The ideas and concepts the party has for developing a world that is more fair and just for working people -- those ideas will never die, he said.

Dr. John Green, a University of Akron political scientist, said the type of change that Lunsford went through happens from time to time.

There are plenty of examples of people moving from one extreme to another, he said.

There are examples of campus radicals from the 1960s who are now Libertarians or strong Republicans and there are examples of ferocious conservatives who became liberals.

There may be people who are profoundly uncomfortable with American society, Green said. They may start on the left or on the right and migrate to the other side.

Both have a common desire for radical transformation, he said.

In a tongue-in-cheek way, I don't think he has changed, she said. He is identified with the most radical person who ever lived, Jesus. Not only is he concerned with politics, but the Lord Jesus is concerned with the complete new order.

Lunsford, who wears a cross around his neck, said he never thought he would become a Bible-thumping Christian. But the Lord's pull on me was so strong. He totally changed me.

When he was a Communist, he said, he looked to himself and to man to solve the problems of the world.

Today I look to Jesus, he said.

And that is where he is looking for guidance on the election.

Nobody excites me, said Lunsford.

But he said he is leaning toward voting for Pat Buchanan because of his strong stance against abortion.

He has an explanation for why his life has changed so much from the days when he would meet in private homes and discuss Marx and Lenin.