Kelly Lotts was a three-time national champion and 27-time All-American for the Denison swimming and diving team between 1995 and 1999. Lotts won a pair of national championships as a member of the 400-yard medley relay team in 1998 and 1999. As a senior, she earned her third national title as a member of the 200-yard freestyle relay. The title in 1998 marked the first-ever relay national championship won by a Denison women’s swimming team.
Lotts’ 27 All-American titles put her just one shy of the maximum number that can be earned by a collegiate swimmer. They also rank her second on Denison’s career All-American performance list. In 1999, while anchoring the 200-yard freestyle relay at the NCAA Division III Championship, Lotts led DU in setting a new national record for the event.
At the conference level, Lotts captured nine NCAC Championships highlighted by individual conference titles in the 100-yard breaststroke in 1995 and 1996. She earned All-NCAC accolades in all four years and became Denison’s 25th NCAA Postgraduate Scholar in 1999.
Lotts earned her bachelor of science in biology, summa cum laude, and matriculated to Ohio State where she earned her master of science in evolution, ecology, and organismal biology in 2003. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Lotts is employed by Montana State University as an ecologist, and she continued to swim at the masters’ level after leaving Denison. In 2006, at the FINA World Masters Championships, she recorded four top-20 finishes.
