Born and raised in Catawba County, Dr. Yount grew up in the Hickory/ St. Stephens area. He gave his life to Christ at the age of eight at Temple Baptist Church. He graduated from St. Stephens High School in 1973, went to Caldwell Community College where he played basketball, and then earned a degree in health and physical education at Lenoir-Rhyne College now Lenior-Rhyne University. 

Dr. Yount says during his senior year at L-R, “The Lord began to quietly speak to my spirit about ministry — a gradual encouragement . . . that I was to use my gifts in ministry to help other people.” He added that Dr. Smoot Baker and Rev. Garland Early, pastors at Temple Baptist Church in Hickory influenced him through their sermons and the “time they invested in me to teach. The result was the growing awareness that God was calling me to the ministry.”

After college, Dr. Yount became a youth minister at Central Baptist Church in Hickory while he continued his education at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC. While still at Southeastern, Dr. Yount began pastoring a church in Virginia. Next was a pastorship at Alexis Baptist Church in Gaston County, during which time he earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Yount was called to Woodlawn Baptist Church in 1993, serving as senior pastor for 27 years. 

Dr. Yount's wife Tanya, a retired kindergarten teacher at Webb A. Murray Elementary School in Hickory, has been an essential part of his 40 years in ministry. They have two children and six  grandchildren.