firsthand

Oral History Interview

Ron Hafer Oral History: Interviewed by Heidi Myers, December 13, 2006
Biola University Centennial Oral History Project

HEIDI MYERS: I am Heidi Myers and I am interviewing Ron Hafer. Today is December 13, 2006. We are in Ron Hafer’s office at Biola University. By including you in the Biola Centennial History Project, we will acquire a more complete detailed picture of our university’s history. Now, do you mind this interview being recorded?

RON HAFER: I do not mind at all.

HM: OK, so we will begin. Now, when did your relationship with Biola begin?

Hafer's Personal Background

College Decision

RH: I came as a student in 1957. I’d had a year at Prairie Bible Institute in Canada. And during that year I decided that I had frozen for a year, I thought—I’m going to be a surfer guy. So really, I knew that Biola was in California because I listened to the Biola Hour, which no longer exists, when I was a kid. So I knew it was in L.A. And I asked a group of singers from a team that came from Denver, I said, how far is it from the beach? And they said, it’s a half an hour. And I said to my father, God has clearly spoken. I’m going to be a surfer guy in California. I had not seen Point Loma, where you could walk down the beach and go surfing or Pepperdine or some of those, but I’m glad God brought me here. By the way, my freshman year, Biola was celebrating their fiftieth. So what a kick! Whoa! Fifty years! And now I’m thinking, whoa! nearly a hundred.

HM: Oh, that’s great! That’s great. So you went to the Prairie Bible Institute and then you came here. Was Biola, at that time, offering other courses besides Bible?

Major

RH: Yeah, we were easing our way into college or pre-university. But I was a biblical studies major. I think maybe there were six or seven majors and emphases. But I just thought, Biola’s Bible, that’s what I’m going to do.

HM: Were you aware of Biola’s mission statement at that time?

RH: Yes.

HM: Do you mind if you just let me know what it was or what your idea of it was?

Mission Statement

RH: Oh, yeah, yeah. Biola’s…our mission statement then, though I couldn’t quote it verbatim, was just a comma and a dash away from where we are today. I like…I think it’s the same as it’s always been. I like it ‘cause it’s a better worded, I think it has, it includes more of our worldview now than the early statement that did. But in the thirties, forties, and fifties, the verbiage, the wording was different. It was very, very similar.

HM: That’s exciting for me to know. Just think—Biola has and continues to stay on throughout these hundred years.

College Years

RH: I was a train wreck, you know. I was, as a freshman, actually up through my senior year, Heidi, I was still really a developing and maturing so… You know, so I was the guy who ditched chapel and never came to Torrey Conference. I was just a mess. (laughs) I was kind of a street-wise kid so I knew how to cut classes. In those days, everyone took attendance but I had worked a way through this little chickie who sat behind me and was criminal who checked my name off. So I was just a mess. I was just absolutely, from the time I came until I left, I was a whole different person. I hadn’t quite come together but I was so much further along.

HM: How did Biola play a role in that?

Basketball and Relationship with Clyde Cook

RH: Huge. Dr. Cook, who was my coach in basketball all four years, he had just finished his playing at Biola and so he was coaching and going to Talbot. So he was my basketball coach, he was my track coach—because he coached all the sports, most people don’t know that. But the guys that I, and I was not particularly good, I was just sincere. But he had a tremendous impact on my life. I won’t take time to tell the whole story but in my senior year of high school, Dr. Cook—and I can tell this story and not many others can because I was back in Denver when it happened.

Dr. Cook, who was still finishing Biola, and he, of course, was an all-CIF basketball player. He had a full scholarship to UCLA, SC, any of the schools. But he came to Biola. In his senior year, he played, after the season was over at Biola, with a semi-pro team called Mirror Glaze. It was just a shop, a car shop, that sponsored this amazing group of eight guys, college and post-college. He played on this team, it was semi-pro, and the thing is they got, like, hamburger money to travel. So it wasn’t like he got a lot of money. He came with an incredible team of guys to Denver, which was my home, and they entered…Mirror Glaze entered this AAU tournament. It was the largest semi-pro tournament in the United States, and a lot of pro scouts were there. So the auditoriums were always packed. Where is this little Mirror Glaze? This little hokey team, I mean, they were no names, nobody knew anyone. And Dr. Cook had the tournament of his life. He was… and Mirror Glaze won the tournament: with eight players and Clyde… I think I saw him play his best basketball eve—like twenty, twenty-five, thirty points a game. So there he was, playing against the best semi-professional players in the nation, and the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post both had it front page: Little Mirror Glaze Cinderella Team Wins AAU. And, of course, his testimony was everywhere because he was so open and overt about his faith in Jesus Christ. And I was looking and I thought—and I saw the championship game—he’s from Biola? That’s incredible.

So imagine, I went to Prairie and then a year later I got here, Dr. Cook was now coaching. And there was this all-world guy that I saw. And he said, have we ever met? And I said, I saw you at the auditorium when you scored thirty points. So he gathered the whole team, he says, come on, Hafer. Tell them the story. (laughter) So we formed this great bond. Dr. Cook, besides the fact that he was my coach, he was a mentor and has been a really wonderful friend. I think most people feel that way about him. They feel…because he makes people feel very special. That’s why our students applaud when he just walks in the room, ‘cause they love him. So he had a tremendous impact on my life.

Preaching

Dr. J. Richard Chase was my speech prof and tried to get me involved in speech and forensics. I was just too lazy. I was actually pretty good ‘cause I’m a talker. But he had a tremendous impact on my life, especially my senior year. And he would affirm me and… I sang with the quartet and so the people were gathered and we would go, and then there was a short message. So I did a lot of preaching during my college years. Dr. Chase kind of nurtured and encouraged me. He’s the one, five years later, after I graduated, invited me back.

So these were two, and it’s not just because they were both presidents, they were just wonderful. And they both still are wonderful friends in my life. Dr. Chase lives in Wheaton but, when he comes to California, we get together still. What a heritage. And it sounds like name-dropping but the fact is, these are Godly men who impacted this little country bumpkin from Colorado. As a lady from Montana, you could appreciate that. (laughter)

HM: Yes, I can. Has it been… Was your relationship with Dr. Cook and, I guess Dr. Chase, too, as well, because he was president here, did it change when you started working as chaplain? Or did you start as chaplain right away?

RH: I came forty-one years ago and then Dr. Cook came back from the mission field a year later. So we were kind of colleagues at first. And Dr. Chase was the president, then. Dr. Chase didn’t like the idea, the only thing I’ve ever disagreed with him on, he didn’t like the idea of a chaplain. He liked the idea of a person doing what I’m doing but he didn’t like a person having the title. Because he feared that, if one person had that title and others were pastoral or ministerial, that they might not do that kind of ministry. They’d back off and say, oh, that’s what the chaplain does. But Dr. Cook realized, when he stepped in as president, he asked me if I was happy here. I said, I’m very happy. I was looking at another position off-campus and he asked me, why? And I said, only because I wanted…I was doing student ministry then, what Barbara Miller’s doing now. And I said, well, I want to be…I don’t want to be a butt-kicker. I don’t want to be a discipline-person. I want to connect with the students more. He goes, well what would that look like? I said, it would…actually I would like to be the university chaplain. And he said, why don’t you? Yeah, right! So he said, why don’t you write the job description. Da-dum! So I pulled it out, he said, we’ll just run it through HR. And so the year he stepped down, I stepped in as that.

So both men affirmed my gifts but Clyde kind of gave me the green flag to have the title to do what I’ve always done, which is connect with students.

And you know when people, Heidi, when people become president, it does change the relationship, you know. Dr. Chase and I would play tennis sometimes on the weekend. Dr. Cook and Dr. Chase and I played hours, probably hundreds of hours, of pickup basketball games. When people become president, it takes them to another realm. And I didn’t feel like I lost their friendship but it did change the relationship, you know, a little bit. ‘Cause the worlds not that Clyde now and not just a lone chaplain (unclear).

HM: Right. Now as far as you mentioned you were teaching for forty-one years, what are some of significant milestones or accomplishments or anything of that nature that you would say that occurred during these forty-one years?

Milestones for Biola

Buying McNally Junior High

RH: It was fun during my years as a student to move from downtown L.A. at the end of my sophomore year. The whole campus, the whole college moved out here to the boonies in La Mirada. So that was huge, that was huge. And for me to look around the eighty-five, ninety acres, whatever, and see that it’s all filled with grass and trees and buildings—that’s just huge. McNally was a junior high and we prayed, Lord, somehow let us buy that; we need that. And then, of all things, the educators got very smart and closed down all the middle schools. And so, sixth graders came to grade school, seventh and eighth, six and seven and eight graders went to high school. So the three middle schools that we had closed down. God answered prayer. We bought McNally. Then, of course, the educators realized, what a stupid thing to do. So then they recreated the middle schools but by now we had it.

So that coming to the campus, the opening up of McNally here, going from Bible school to college to university, watching in those forty-one years (coughs) that I’m actually… I want to correct the statement, I haven’t finished, I’m in year forty-one but I did get my forty-year gift, which is very nice.

HM: Ohhhh.

Rosemead and Intercultural Studies Schools Open

RH: Watching Rosemead come as one of our schools—everyone was suspect, these bunch of shrinks, are they even Christians, you know? And just really fascinating. Talbot was always here. Watching Dr. Cook get the two million dollars for the repayment of the land that the Communists had taken from Biola in China. And committing a million dollars of that to the School of Intercultural Studies. So most people don’t realize that Dr. Cook really gave birth to the School of Intercultural Studies, which was simply a department of Missions at one time. Watching the old Missionary Medicine program shut down and open up to, really, a School of Nursing. So it just goes on and on and on.

Chapel Restructure

Watching us go from—and I will say it to my dying day—go from five half-hour chapels a week, and they were not very good… (laughs) I mean, what could you do in half-an-hour: a prayer, ten minutes of worship and singing, then ask a guy like John MacArthur to preach in fifteen minutes. John MacArthur can’t introduce his message in fifteen minutes. So Dr. Cook had the courage to mess with that sacred <garbled> and say, no! We’re going to cancel that five days a week and we’re going to go… Actually his first decision was to go to four, and the whole community gave him so much flak in his first year that he backed away. And then a year later, and I admire him for this even though I was a critic, and he didn’t even throw it open to the crowd and say, what do you think? He just said, this is an edict, folks. We’re going to go to three chapels, they’re going to be forty-five minutes, and we’re going to be good. It’s one of the best things that’s ever happened.

Torrey and Missions Conferences

Another fun thing for me, Heidi, was that twenty-five years ago my boss—I’ve been here a hundred years so I’ve had about eleven bosses—but my boss said to me, Ron, would you be willing to take Torrey Conference. We’re going to move it from five days to a three-day conference, which I thought was great. And I said, yes! And he said, we’ll give you more money. And I said, yes! ‘Cause, you know, he knew I was carnal and I could be bought. And so I said, so what does Torrey Conference look like? He said, no, you know, Torrey Conference. It’s the same. But I had always ditched Torrey; I mean, here I was (laughs) and during Torrey Conference, during the previous fifteen years, I did a lot of traveling for Biola and speaking. I would travel with the athletic teams and music teams. And during Torrey and the Missions Conferences, these teams would go on their tours so, for the first fifteen years I was here, again I didn’t go. So the first Torrey Conference that I ever did I stood up and introduced it and I held up my hands—I thought it was a great one-liner—and I said, this is my first Torrey Conference. And nobody thought it was particularly funny. I think they thought that means it’s the first one that you’ve been in charge of. And so afterwards I said, why wasn’t that funny? And the lady that was working with me as an administrative assistant said, I think they misunderstood.

Revival and Missions

So that’s been a joy, to have that responsibility to watch the chapels go from very average-minus, and I work with the committee so I don’t think I’m taking the praise, to what I think, I just think we do an exceptional job. It’s been fun to watch the student body grow. To hang on to the distinctives. It’s been a delight to watch when the spirit of God has moved across the campus in times of revival. Many times quietly, kind of behind the scenes. This year, during Torrey Conference, to give you an example of an obvious moving of the spirit of God: virtually hundreds of students confessed sin, got their hearts right with God, became part of accountability groups and prayer groups. We saw that happen the very first week that Dr. Chase was inaugurated as president. And he led the Lord’s Supper on the Wednesday night. And he said, I think what I’m going to do is just throw it open before we take the Lord’s supper, to anyone who might want to share something. And there was open confession of sins. It started at eight and ended at one a.m. It was just so very exciting. We didn’t capitalize on that and put it in our literature because it was the spirit of God moving but it was exciting to see that happen. Twenty-five, thirty, about thirty years ago, my wife and I joined a group of seventy students that went to the island of Trinidad. And our challenge of capturing the island for Christ, now that was exciting. Missions’ trips are, you know, there isn’t enough tape to recount all of the exciting things that have happened there. So there are a few things.

By the way, my memory reflects back to Dr. Talbot, who was chancellor then. Dr. Sutherland was the president and also a wonderful friend during my student days. But Dr. Talbot, who goes back to the thirties, has another two hours of tape and stories. He was an amazing legend of a man. My memories are really clear of Dr. Talbot and… Come back on another day and I’ll give you an hour of tape on Dr. Louis Talbot. He’s just amazing.

Memories of Louis Talbot

One quick story. I was with the quartet. We were up in northern California and we were staying, the guys in the quartet stayed in homes. And I was in some lady’s home. There was these little ladies that had never been married and were single, probably in their—I mean, they seemed real old to me then—they’re probably in their sixties. (laughter) And they said, do you want to hear an interesting story? They called each other “sister.” You want to tell that story, sister? OK, sister. So they said, do you know Dr. Talbot? I said, oh, yeah! They said, you know the guy’s a real character. I said, yeah. They said he stayed with us, in Lodi or near Sacramento, and for a week, while he was preaching—so this probably went back into the forties… When I was experiencing the story it was in ’57 or ’58. He stayed in our home and I would say to sister in the morning, sister, isn’t the coffee real stale and rancid. And no matter what we do, it just, you know, we’d wash up the pot and everything but by the time we fixed the coffee. And then Dr. Talbot admitted that he was washing out his socks, he was boiling his socks! (laughs) Not only his socks but his underwear! And he’d wring them out and hang them up. I mean, he was one of the world’s great characters. (laughter)

Memories of Sam Sutherland=

And this was when he was the president of Biola, well, then the Bible Institute. The story he had a third of his stomach removed because he ate anything. He had horrible eating habits. He had a third of his stomach removed, missed several weeks, came back to school—this is, of course, when he was the president downtown, so its’ probably in the forties—and his secretary said there’d be…what special food…? No that’s fine, and he was from Australia, New Zealand, so he had this great accent. And a loud gravelly voice. It’s interesting because Dr. Sutherland had a gravelly voice. I used to make fun of them. Now I have a gravelly voice. (laughter) So, an hour into his lunch hour, his secretary ran into his office and Dr. Talbot was on the floor, writhing in pain—call the doctors! Call the doctors! And she said, what is it? Are you having an attack? And he said, no! I think it’s something that I ate. And she saw, on his desk, a can—a half-eaten can—of anchovies! With crackers, he had eaten right after this surgery. And so she said—she’s telling the story in chapel because the lady, who was the secretary—his wife died of cancer. He married her so she has a hundred stories. And so many of them are in the book, For This I Was Born, that Carol Terry Talbot wrote. So I think this story’s in there.

Downtown L.A. Campus

But I was around when those stuff like that was happening. It’s a kick. So it’s fun to sit and start to reflect, you know. I would rather be able to do it clearly and have instant recall. In the old days, between downtown Biola on Sixth and Hope Streets, were two thirteen-story hotels. And the women were in one, on one end, and then the church, and then the men were on the other. And the hotels popped up seven or eight stories above the church. We had all of our classes in the basement and in the classrooms of that church. That was the Bible Institute. Between the buildings, the dorm, and the church was a metal pipe, a beam, and it was probably, I’d say, fifteen or twenty feet. And it would…and it ran from the balcony across to and it butted up against the wall of the church. It was just a fortress. It was an iron beam that locked the things in place. During my freshman and sophomore years, and there was a hundred-foot drop, there were very few students, I was one of them—I don’t brag about this but I did it—walk that beam several times. And I’m looking still, if I can find a couple of pictures, I could probably sell them on E-Bay (laughs) for a lot of money (laughter). There was a student, not myself—I don’t think I had the ability to do this—that on the top of the building, each of the dorms on the roof was a Jesus Saves sign. Then, thirteen stories that could be seen all over L.A. But, of course, you know, now it wouldn’t show anywhere. And, of course, the church and buildings are long gone. There was a student who did hand stands—I walked on top of that sign, on top of that building—but there were students, at least one, who did a handstand. So, of course, foolish students made themselves famous by ridiculous acts like that.

HM: Did you get in trouble for that?

RH: Oh, no. I’m sure I would have if I’d gotten caught. (laughter) So there are a few foolish reflections from this old guy. Too many wonderful, wonderful stories. And on January 2, I’m going to speak in the interterm chapel, and I’m going to talk from Proverbs—as iron sharpens so one man sharpens the counsel of his friend. And I’m simply going to tell stories—none of these, but others—of students who impacted my life in a powerful way, just regular, normal, everyday students. And so, and I’m starting to, as a lot of older guys are, compile in my journal, some of these stories, so that they’re still around. You know, they’re not, they’re probably not precious to anybody but the person writing them, but I’m feeling how important it is to have this down. So, I enjoy being part of, one of the old guys who’s reflecting.

HM: Oh, yes, and we appreciate you doing this.

"Buster," Hafer's Nickname. Closing Thoughts

RH: Thank you. Well, it’s a joy. And to be at a place… My dad, who’s my hero… He’s ninety but he has Alzheimer’s now, I think the Lord is going to take him soon. And my mom is ninety, as well. But my dad, who has been my hero all my life, said… During my student days I was Buster, that was my nickname, and I would still be Buster today but Dr. Chase, when he brought me back, started calling me Ron. So I realized Buster died a slow death. But my dad said, Buster, Bus, here’s what you do in life: find what you’re good at and then find somebody who will pay you to do that. And you know what, Heidi? That’s what I did at Biola. Actually, I didn’t know what I was good at but I know what I liked. I loved young people, I loved to preach, I’ve always loved Biola. So when Dr. Chase said, you and your wife want to fly back here and look us over on Alumni week? Because we’d love you to come back to work. If he had asked me right then, I’d have said, yes! I’d do it. I’ll go to work. And I have been so blessed to be in a place that I think really maximizes my gifts and it brings me great, great joy. So I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. I was in a Christian Ed class two years ago, they were all seniors, and they said, here’s the question: Money aside, everything else aside, if you could name what you’d like to do, anything you’d like to do, any place you’d like to be or go in the world other than here at Biola right now doing what you’re doing, what would it be? And I said, well, it would be this. This is what I love to do. This is what I love to be. This is who I am. And I’m sixty-eight now and I have no desire to do anything else. You know, you hedge your bets, Heidi, so if they finally boot me out of here, there are some things that I think I would move toward. But nothing that would bring me the joy that this has. Can you imagine being a sixty-eight-year-old guy that gets to run around with college people, sit and chat joyfully for half-an-hour with Miss Montana…

HM: Oh! (laughs)

RH: …and then, at the end of the month, Biola thanks me and gives me a check. Pretty exciting. So I’m a very satisfied customer.

HM: Oh, as am I. Now is there anything else that you’d like to add that we didn’t talk about?

RH: Yes. I would like to say that the reason that I wouldn’t be able to be president is that I don’t have any suits and I couldn’t afford to take the pay cut from president. So I’m going to have to decline. And then tell your listeners that I’m smiling as I say it. (laughter)

HM: All right!

RH: Thank you, Heidi.

HM: Thank you so much, Ron. Thank you.

RH: You’re welcome.