Hookup Now Gantt South Carolina

Education

Published on December 23rd, 2014 | by Millennium Magazine Staff

Pictured; District Five Board Vice Chairman Robert Gantt is surrounded by students as he visits his daughter’s fourth grade classroom in December.

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IRMO – For Robert Gantt, his 30-plus years in public education leadership roles can be summed up with a few simple words: “I love schools and the kids inside.”

It’s a passion for education six decades in the making that has led him to serve 14 years as an elected School Board member with Lexington-Richland School District Five and countless years in various other school capacities, from School Improvement Council chair at three schools to a volunteer bus driver for athletic teams.

Now the District Five Board Vice Chairman is taking on an additional role. Gantt was installed as president of the South Carolina School Boards Association on Dec. 6, a new and highly visible post he hopes to utilize to grow support for public education.

“I have a one-year shot at this, but I hope that we can have an even stronger support of our public schools,” said Gantt, showing a red SCSBA ‘Stand Up 4 SC Public Schools’ bracelet. “I really hope we can be really strong advocates…we need to have lawmakers hear our views on funding and on bringing everyone up to a level that is in the best interest of all students.”

Gantt’s positive view of schools and public educators began 60 years ago with his first grade teacher, Mrs. Whitesides. Attending Central Elementary School in the tight-knit community of Rock Hill, Gantt remembers vividly how all the activities seemed to center around his elementary school and how Mrs. Whitesides made a lasting impression on how he viewed school for years to come.

“I fell in love with my first grade teacher, Mrs. Whitesides …I just thought the sun rose and set on her,” Gantt joked. “I remember enjoying school at an early age, not only because of Mrs. Whitesides but also because school was a big part of my life. My mother was a homeroom mom, and my dad would help with some of the activities…I think it’s a big part of the fabric of America, and I spend my time now defending public schools because I love them.”

In 1972, Gantt and his wife, Laura Smith Gantt, moved to Irmo and immediately noted the community’s growth and history of having top schools. When he became a parent, he modeled his own parents’ views on schools and became increasingly involved.

“When my oldest daughter started school, I realized then how much I had missed being in public schools,” Gantt said. “I started volunteering as much as I could just to be in schools and be around the students.”

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Gantt says he was elected in 2000 to the Lexington-Richland District Five School Board, where there was a positive climate for public schools in the district. “Hopefully, some of the decisions and actions I have participated in as a Board member has had that same positive impact for students and the community.”

Gantt said he remained on the board to bring stability to the district’s leadership, which at one time had several changes in superintendents. He also wanted to help oversee the district’s 2008 Bond Referendum, which now has resulted in major facilities upgrades in District Five.

Another reason Gantt cites for staying involved is his support of students. “We have amazing students in District Five and throughout the state of South Carolina,” he said. “There are many positive things going on in public schools, and we have so much to celebrate every day.”

In mid-December at Leaphart Elementary School, students gathered around Gantt as he showed a video on the role of school boards and school leaders. Questions were allowed as students realized the key role their guest speaker plays in leading schools, and Gantt was quickly bombarded with inquiries from the fourth grade class.

“Can we bring pets to school?” one student asks.

“Strawberry milk…can we have that in the cafeteria?” another student probes.

Gantt is used to these types of questions. He is in the schools often, visiting classes as well as his granddaughter’s third grade class at River Springs Elementary to read and have lunch with Laura Katherine.

He visits his two daughters’ classrooms, too. They are teachers in District Five, while another is a doctor who teaches as a physician educator. For all three daughters, their father was a constant presence in their educational journey and a big reason they all valued education.

“My motivation for becoming an educator I, without question, attribute to my own experiences in our district’s schools with my dad always by my side,” said Laura Jane Gantt, a fourth grade teacher at Leaphart Elementary. “Whether it was to drive me and my sisters to school in the mornings, help me with homework (science fair projects were our favorite), volunteer in the classroom or coming to eat lunch with me; he always has been and still is the biggest supporter of my educational career, first as a student and now as a teacher. It is the neatest and most wonderful blessing in the world.”

Elizabeth Perla, a teacher at Spring Hill High School, added: “My dad has been there for my first day of school for my entire career, as a parent taking me to school then as a parent helping me set up my room for my students each year. He does this so that he can help make sure that the students get off to a good start. His whole goal is to play a positive role in education…that really is the reason for all he does for schools.”

Dr. Katherine Gettys said her father both demonstrated and talked about the importance of education, taking pride in the fact that his three daughters are today carrying on that legacy. “He would be happy for us to do anything that we loved to do…but I feel like his love of education, his passion for it, talking about it at home and being at the school helped us know how important it was to give back through teaching.”

He does it for the “right reasons” his daughters all agreed. And though his enthusiasm for public education started 60 years ago in Rock Hill with Mrs. Whiteside, Gantt says the feeling he gets when he enters a classroom is still the same.

“The same feeling I got when I went to school in first grade is the same feeling I have now,” Gantt said. “It doesn’t feel like it’s been 60 years since I started school or 30-plus years since I became a school leader. I enjoy it, and I enjoy being a part of the process of making sure our students have the same experience I did. In the end, I hope I will be able to make a difference for children.”

Eight School District Five students are candidates for U.S. Presidential Scholars Program →

I don’t know what brought the following to mind, and I’m pretty sure I’ve written about my experience visiting the Town of Gantt, South Carolina before. I just have a feeling that it will speak to someone’s heart today and maybe, just maybe bring a little smile into your life in a pretty dreary time.

I am originally from North Carolina––born and bred. I was preaching in the Carolinas a few years ago when I found myself driving near a little town called Gantt, SC. I thought, “How cool can that be? A town with my name!” So, I drove the few extra miles to exactly where the GPS said Gantt, South Carolina was located, and I found it! What I found was. . . . . nothing. Not a store, not a town hall or police department – just a few streets with mill houses and house trailers. Let it suffice to say I won’t be giving anybody directions to the town I was named after.

As I drove up the Interstate back to my Uncle Jim’s house I chuckled a bit and snorted, “Well THAT was a big disappointment!” I guess I had envisioned a quaint little southern town with oak tree-lined streets, soda shops with a bench outside; maybe a sign on an antebellum house that has Old Doc Whatshisname on it. I had even planned to take a photo of the sign reading, “Welcome to Gantt, South Carolina”, and post it on Facebook. However, the only sign I saw was on an old garage building that said, “Alternators Rebuilt” – it was closed. I did read later that there is the grave of some Judge Richard Gantt buried somewhere in the area, but the post’s comments said the gravesite was overgrown with pricker bushes and about ankle deep in water. So much for the town of Gantt.

Then the strangest thing happened: An old Larry Norman tune from the early ’70s started running through my head and I couldn’t make it stop. Back in the neolithic period of my ministry I used to sing a lot of Larry’s stuff but hadn’t thought of him or his music in forever – but there was that song. These are the lyrics:

I am a servant, I am listening for my name,
I sit here waiting, I’ve been looking at the game
That I’ve been playing, and I’ve been staying much the same
When you are lonely, you’re the only one to blame.

I am a servant, I am waiting for the call,
I’ve been unfaithful, so I sit here in the hall.
How can you use me when I’ve never given all,
How can you choose me when you know I’d quickly fall.

So you feed my soul and you make me grow,
And you let me know you love me.
And I’m worthless now, but I’ve made a vow,
I will humbly bow before thee.
O please use me, I am lonely.

I am a servant getting ready for my part,
There’s been a change, a rearrangement in my heart.
At last I’m learning, there’s no returning once I start.
To live’s a privilege, to love is such an art
But I need your help to start,
O please purify my heart, I am your servant

Now for those of you who know my history – I am a lot like Gantt, South Carolina. I come from very humble beginnings and over the years from time to time I have thought a great deal more of myself than I ought to. Imagining myself to be more like the shaded streets of an idyllic town that doesn’t exist when in reality I am much closer to a run-down old garage with a faded and falling down sign. I don’t believe myself to be overly prideful, but I have from time to time entertained dreams of greatness and significant achievement in the Kingdom — all for HIS glory, of course.

I so deeply and profoundly want to be used by God––so badly I ache for it. I am 71 years old. My streets are run down and my sign is old, and I haven’t lived up to anybody’s expectations – especially my own. I don’t want to be a forgotten little strip mall in the middle of nowhere that is a disappointment to everybody who arrives expecting something bigger, something better. And then, right in the middle of Gantt, South Carolina I turned a corner and there was a sign. It was faded and worn, barely readable as the sandpaper of time had all but erased its message: Jesus Loves You. I realize now that those three words are all that really matters.

Sometimes, divine appointments so eagerly anticipated do not turn out at all as I expect them to, but each in its own way proves to be significant. That day, my appointment was with Gantt, South Carolina and between two house trailers and a run-down old garage was God’s message to me.