Jacksonville, AL – As originally reported by Brett Buckner of JSU’s Media Department, Dr. Kevin Lackey hasn’t forgotten where he came from — or who helped him get there. A self-described “poor kid from the trailer park” in Anniston, Lackey was the first in his family to attend college. Today, he’s an accomplished anesthesiologist with Anesthesia Associates of Gadsden, serving patients at the Regional Medical Center and Stringfellow Hospital. But his journey began at Jacksonville State University (JSU), where he crossed paths with a professor who would change the course of his life: Dr. Fred Gant.
“Dr. Gant’s efforts laid the groundwork for the success of many of us to get into and through med school and residency,” Lackey said. “I don’t even know if [he] truly appreciates the impact he had on a generation of future graduate students in the medical sciences.”
Now, nearly 45 years after first stepping into Gant’s chemistry class, Lackey and other former students recently came together to honor their beloved mentor. The reunion, organized by Lackey and his college best friend Dr. Jason Junkins, brought together a group of now-practicing physicians whose academic roots trace back to Dr. Gant’s classroom at JSU.
“It was really nice,” Gant said of the event. “It was a very humbling experience, and I felt very, very blessed.”
Dr. Gant began teaching chemistry at JSU in 1967 after a brief stint at Mobile College. Though he originally dreamed of working with NASA after earning his Ph.D. from the University of Alabama, a friend encouraged him to apply for an opening at Jacksonville State. He accepted — and stayed for the next 33 years.
“We had a good student body and turned out some really good students,” Gant said. “They did us all real proud.”
Among those students was Dr. LaDonna Crews, now Associate Professor of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine at the University of South Alabama. She vividly remembers the individualized attention Gant gave each student.
“He always provided us with a listening ear and caring heart with his open-door policy,” Crews said. “He emphasized that what one may think of as adversity might just be a new learning opportunity.”
During the reunion, former students shared stories about how Dr. Gant shaped their lives and careers. In addition to heartfelt tributes, the group also established the Dr. Fred Gant Endowed Scholarship Fund — a competitive scholarship for junior or senior students in the Pre-Health Professions program at JSU.
“Dr. Gant has impacted many students’ lives, even the ones that did not go into medicine,” said Dr. Junkins, who is now a physician and the founder and CEO of Southern Immediate Care. “Because of him, literally tens of thousands of patients’ lives have been affected.”
Dr. Lisa Franklin, a 1988 graduate and long-time OB-GYN at Henderson and Walton Women’s Center, credits Gant with giving her the tough love she needed.
“He got onto me,” she recalled of a poor test grade. “But he knew if I struggled in his class, it would be harder for a med school to even look at me. That wisdom proved he cared.”
Franklin, like many of Gant’s students, was a first-generation college student navigating uncharted territory. “It was such uncharted waters for me,” she said. “I needed all the help I could get, and he was my guide.”
Gant understood the stakes. He recognized that many JSU students didn’t come from privileged backgrounds, and he worked hard to make sure every student had a chance.
“I tried to make sure everybody understood that I cared about what they did,” he said. “You can’t teach a student if you’re not honest with them.”
For students like “Ricky,” a young man whose mother cleaned offices at night to support his education, Gant’s guidance was life-altering. After initial rejections from medical schools, Gant personally intervened, calling the admissions chair at South Alabama to vouch for Ricky’s perseverance and growth.
“He’s progressed every year,” Gant told the admissions official. The student was accepted into a demanding program — one few completed. Four years later, Gant received a call: Ricky was graduating and had become one of the school’s most promising diagnostic physicians.
“Stories like that… it’s why I loved what I did,” Gant said.
Dr. Lackey and Dr. Junkins, who often spent long nights in the chemistry department doing “chalk talk” and prepping for exams, say the study habits and discipline they learned under Dr. Gant were crucial to their future success.
“Dr. Gant instilled in me a love for the scientific method,” Lackey said. “He expected — rightly — that his students would apply this to study and to learn the material.”
And Dr. Gant wasn’t just preparing them for medical school — he was preparing them for life.
“I want you to be the best doctor you can be,” he would say, “because someday you may be my doctor.”
That day came. Over the years, two or three of Gant’s former students have become his own physicians.
“They’ve done real well,” he said with pride.
Now retired, Dr. Fred Gant’s influence continues through the lives and careers of his former students — and through the scholarship that will help the next generation of medical professionals rise to the challenge, just as he once encouraged them to.
