Gary W. Hart (born 1936) came to national attention as a political campaign organizer, a two-term U.S. senator, and a presidential candidate.

Gary Warren Hart was born on November 28, 1936, in Ottawa, Kansas, an agricultural community where his father farmed and sold farm equipment. The family moved to Colorado several years later. At college, he shortened his family name from Hartpence to Hart. He married the former Oletha (Lee) Ludwig in 1958. They had two children, Andrea (born in 1964) and John (born in 1966).

Throughout his youth, Hart had considered the ministry as his life's vocation. He entered Bethany Nazarene College in Oklahoma and earned his B.A. degree in 1958. After graduation, he entered Yale Divinity School, where he planned an academic program in philosophy and religion. At Yale he discovered there were alternatives of service, and his career goals changed with his entry into the world of politics. Though his...