Early Life and Education
Vander Jagt was born in Cadillac, Michigan, to Marie and Harry Vander Jagt, a Dutch immigrant. Harry was a rancher, and as a youth, Guy worked on the family's 120-acre (0.49 km2) farm near Cadillac. His talent for public speaking emerged as he began preaching at the Tustin Presbyterian Church while still a student at Cadillac High School. He graduated from Hope College in Holland in 1953. While a student at Hope College, he was the state debate champion of Michigan for three years and won the National Oratorical Championship during his senior year. He was also the student body president during his senior year and worked as a radio disc jockey at WHTC.
Vander Jagt went on to attend Yale Divinity School, graduating in 1955 with a B.D.. In 1956, he received a Rotary Foundation Fellowship to study for a year at the University of Bonn, Germany.
When he returned to West Michigan, Vander Jagt served as an interim pastor of the Cadillac Congregational Church for a short time, before working at the WWTV television station as a newscaster and news director. He reportedly memorized the text of each broadcast.
Vander Jagt next went back to school to study law at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., but soon transferred to the University of Michigan Law School, where he received his J.D. in 1960. He began practicing law in Grand Rapids.
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