Lenoir-Rhyne University Athletics

Dick Gantt was a four-year starter at guard in football beginning as a freshman on the 1952 championship team.  He was also a member of the track team in 1952 and 1953.  Projected as an all-conference lineman during his junior year, Gantt was thwarted pby a preseason broken wrist, which kept him out of the early contests.  He gained all-conference recognition, however, the following year and was alternate captain of the 1955 championship team.  He was also recognized with an Honorable Mention for the All-State team as a senior and received the coveted Lee Kirby Memorial Award.  An all-around student, Gantt also won first place in the 1954 Dr. Glenn Frye Declamation Contest.  Following his graduation in 1956, Gantt entered Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary and received his M.Div. degree in 1959.  In 1970, he earned a Master of Sacred Theology degree at the same institution.  From 1959-73, Pastor Gantt served congregations in Concord, N.C., Tampa, Fla., and College Park, Ga.  In 1970, Newberry College recognized his contributions to the Church by conferring on him the honorary degree Doctor of Divinity.  In 1973, Gantt was called to serve as a regional staff person of the Division for Mission in North America of the Lutheran College in America.  During the next 25 years he continued in this capacity for the LCA and its successor body, the ELCA, being responsible during that time for the development of over 70 new congregations.