Duane Garrison Hunt

Duane Garrison Hunt (September 19, 1884—March 31, 1960) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Salt Lake City from 1937 until his death.
==Biography==
Duane Hunt was born in Reynolds, Nebraska, to a Methodist family. He studied at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, from where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1907, and then taught at public schools in Iowa. In 1911, Hunt entered the University of Iowa Law School, but his poor vision forced him to resign from it in 1912, the same year in which his questioning of the Methodist Church led him to convert to Catholicism. He was baptized a year later, in 1913, in Chicago, Illinois.
Hunt became professor of public speaking at the University of Utah that same year, and remained in that post until 1916, whence he resigned in order to enter St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, California. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 27, 1920, in the Cathedral of the Madeleine. Very keen on athletics, Hunt was a skilled tennis player and coached the first diocesan baseball league in 1928. He directed the cathedral choir for fourteen years as well.
He did eight months of missionary work in Vernal, and was then named rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in 1925. Hunt was later made chancellor and vicar general of Salt Lake City, and raised to the rank of Monsignor in 1929. From 1927 to 1949, he was the weekly speaker on NBC's "Catholic Hour" radio program. He was editor of the diocesan newspaper, Intermountain Catholic, from 1926 to 1934, and published his treatise The People, the Clergy and the Church in 1928.
On August 6, 1937, Hunt was appointed the fifth Bishop of Salt Lake City by Pope Pius XI. He received his episcopal consecration on the following October 28 from Archbishop John Mitty, with Bishops Robert Armstrong and Thomas Gorman serving as co-consecrators. Hunt was the first Methodist convert raised to the American episcopate.
During his tenure, the Bishop established fifteen parishes throughout the state. He also invited such religious orders as the Carmelites, Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, and Trappists to serve in Utah. An intelligent apologist, he authored several defenses of the Catholic Church, including The Continuity of the Catholic Church, which attempted to refute Mormon claims against the Church.
Hunt died from a heart ailment at the age of 75.
==External links==
*Catholic-Hierarchy
*Utah History Encyclopedia
Category:1884 births
Category:1960 deaths
Category:People from Nebraska
Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism
Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Methodism
Category:Converts to Catholicism from Protestantism
Category:Former Protestants
Category:American Roman Catholics
Category:20th-century Roman Catholic bishops
Category:American Roman Catholic bishops