Hunt, Duane Garrison
HUNT, DUANE GARRISON
Bishop, preacher; b. Reynolds, Nebraska, Sept. 19, 1884; d. Salt Lake City, Utah, March 31, 1960. He was the son of Andrew Dixon and Dema (Garrison) Hunt, both Methodists. Hunt attended Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, and the State University of Iowa, Iowa City. While doing graduate work at the University of Chicago, he began to study the history of the Catholic Church, into which he was received in January 1913. He accepted a position on the faculty of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, where further study in the field of religion led him to enter St. Patrick's Seminary, San Francisco, to prepare for the priesthood. He was ordained in 1920 by Joseph Glass, second bishop of Salt Lake City, and served in various parishes of that diocese. Its third bishop, John J. Mitty, appointed him vicar-general, a position he retained during Bishop James E. Kearney's administration (1932–37). When Kearney was transferred to the Rochester Diocese, Hunt was appointed fifth bishop of Salt Lake City and was consecrated on Oct. 28, 1937. In 1946 he was made an assistant at the pontifical throne.
Hunt was outstanding as a preacher and for many years conducted a popular radio program of Catholic information, which served to dissipate anti-Catholic prejudice and led many to enter the Church. He wrote The People, the Clergy and the Church (1936) and was editor of the Intermountain Catholic (1930–32).
[j. e. kearney]