Former Trinity UCC pastor returns for Tiffin
Rev. Gantt to conduct special Heidelberg Alumni Weekend service

TIFFIN - Local alumni and friends of Heidelberg College are invited to participate in a special worship service during Alumni Weekend June 23-25 that will be conducted by clergy who graduated from the college 50 years ago.

The service is scheduled for 9 a.m. Sunday, June 25, in Rickly Chapel, located in College Hall.

Returning to Tiffin from his present post in Portland, Ore., to officiate the service will be the Rev. John Marshall Gantt, who served as senior pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ from 1964-1971. Gantt, a member of Heidelberg's 50th reunion class, will deliver the message with a former colleague at Heidelberg and Eden Theological Seminary, the Rev. Dr. James A. Dewey of Louisville, Ky.

Liturgist for the service will be the Rev. Dr. Charles B. Grimm of Rochester, N.Y. Serving as organist will be Donna (Fischer) Overholt of Tiffin, class of '57.

Although retired from ministry since 2000, when he and his wife established a retirement residence in Indianapolis, Gantt has continued his involvement with the UCC. After serving the Disaster Response Ministries of the Indiana-Kentucky Conference as interim pastor of a parish in northern Indiana, he accepted a three-year appointment as interim conference minister in the Central Pacific Conference in Portland. He currently works with 49 UCC congregations in Oregon, southern Washington and southern Idaho.

After he left Trinity UCC, Gantt became executive director at Crossroad/Fort Wayne Children's Home in Indiana, a post he held for 19 years before returning to parish ministry. The treatment center for emotionally troubled youth is a member agency of the UCC Council for Health and Human Service Ministries. He chaired the committee which wrote the first standards of care for Indiana residential child-service agencies, and is a charter member of the National Association of Homes for Children.

Dewey served for five years as associate conference minister in the Indiana-Kentucky Conference, and three pastorates for 24 years. Grimm served his entire career in ministry as institutional chaplain with the Office of Children and Family Services in New York.

For additional information about Alumni Weekend, visit Heidelberg's website at www2.heidelberg.edu.