Submitted by Rick Berkheiser

South Bend Tribune",Online Edition, Tuesday, September 6, 2005

Everest, radio minister, dies at 97
Bethel president credits his vision for founding of college.

By MELISSA JACKSON
Tribune Staff Writer

What a life.

What a ministry.

What a dad.

Those were the words the Rev. Quinton J. Everest's daughter typed as she sent out e-mails about her father's death on Sunday at the age of 97.

A fitting summary for a man whose vision led to the founding of Bethel College in Mishawaka, whose voice reached millions worldwide in a radio career that spanned five decades, whose leadership grew a 20-member South Bend church meeting in a basement into a 1,000-member-strong congregation.

Everest died Sunday of natural causes at Hubbard Hill Estates, an Elkhart retirement home where he had been a charter board member for 21 years.

He is survived by his wife of 76 years, Melinda "May" Everest of Elkhart; four children, Charlene Sherry of Mishawaka, Sharon Fry of Indianapolis, Cynthia McKee of Laguna Beach, Calif., and Quinton J. Everest Jr. of Georgetown, Texas; 12 grandchildren; and 21 great-grandchildren.

"He just couldn't say 'no' if it was a work to be done for the Lord," daughter Charlene Sherry said. "(He was) totally dedicated. There was not an ounce of him that was not dedicated to God and his service."

Bethel College President Steve Cramer called Everest a "strong advocate for higher education" in what would become the Missionary Church, and said the college would likely not exist, at least in Mishawaka, without Everest's vision.

"He was the man who kept the dream alive when everyone else was ready to give up in the mid-1940s," Cramer said. "Nothing seemed to be working out. He would refuse to let it die."

Everest helped persuade local lawmakers not to turn the property that would become Bethel's campus into a drive-in theater, then raised money for the fledgling school, helped recruit faculty and assisted in selecting its first president.

Now, 58 years after its founding, Bethel's enrollment is almost 2,000.

"He was so pleased to see the small acorn planted many years ago had become this large oak tree," Cramer said.

Growing up, he remembers hearing Everest preach at revival services and on the radio.

"He was a gifted speaker," Cramer said. "He had a wonderful radio voice. We, as students in the late '60s and early '70s, to us, his voice sounded like the voice of God."

A pastor for 37 years, Everest began his radio ministry in 1933 on a local radio station, WTRC.

"He was on every Sunday without missing for 50 years," Charlene Sherry said of her father's program, which became "Your Worship Hour" and eventually reached 125 radio stations worldwide. Everest also had another radio show, "Sunrise Meditations," which was broadcast on WSBT radio weekdays for 22 years.

The Rev. Gordon Bacon of Goshen, who worked with Everest on the "Your Worship Hour" broadcast and also served as an associate pastor with him, recalled that "for about 40 years at least he took no salary" from the program. Instead, he funneled that money into Gospel Center Missionary Church in South Bend, where he was pastor for 22 years.

That church, which grew from 20 to more than 1,000 members under his leadership, also attracted a number of minority professionals in the 1950s and 1960s, according to former Bethel College President Norman Bridges.

"There weren't very many integrated churches in the area at that time," Bridges said.

To the end, Bacon said, Everest desired to be involved in ministry.

"The one thing that bothered him so much was that he was not able to get out and speak," he said.

Visitation will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday at Palmer Funeral Home in South Bend, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday in the Everest-Rohrer Rotunda at Bethel College. His funeral will be at 2 p.m. Saturday in the Everest-Rohrer Auditorium at Bethel.