Gospel Music Association to honor trio of Bears tonight

The Gospel Music Association hosts its second annual GMA Honors event tonight in Nashville — and three members of the Baylor family will be among the honorees.

Roland Lundy, BBA ’72, longtime president and CEO of Christmas music giant Word Entertainment, is among the 2015 inductees into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, where he will join fellow Bears such as Billy Ray Hearn, BM ’54, and Jarrell McCracken, BA ’50, MA ’53.

Lundy, a four-year Baylor baseball letterwinner, went straight from Baylor to Word in 1972, starting out as a telemarketer and working his way up to the head of the company 17 years later. As Word Entertainment’s president and CEO from 1989 to 2000, Lundy oversaw the company’s move from Waco to Nashville and nearly doubled the company’s revenues.

Two more Bears — Louie and Shelley Giglio, BBA ’86 — are among this year’s GMA Honors recipients. The Giglios are best known as the founders of the Passion movement; Passion can trace its history back to the mid 1980s, while the Giglios began their ministry as students at Baylor. Today, Louie pastors a church in Atlanta in addition to his writing and overseeing the Passion conferences. Shelley is chief strategist and manager to the bands at sixstepsrecords as well as a Baylor Regent.

Sic ’em, GMA honorees!

You might also like:
* Truett’s sermons archived in Baylor Digital Collections (Aug. 2014)
* Word Records comes home to Baylor/Waco roots to celebrate 60th anniversary (Nov. 2011)
* Ashley Cleveland earns Grammy nomination for album inspired by Baylor gospel music project (Dec. 2009)