Oral History Interview

Biola University Centennial Oral History Project

INTERVIEWEE: Dave Peters

INTERVIEWER: Heidi Myers

DATE: October 27, 2006

HEIDI MYERS: My name is Heidi Myers, I will be interviewing Dr. Dave Peters. Today is October 27, 2006. We are in the Production Center at Biola University. What we are hoping to do here is that, by including you in the Biola Oral History Centennial Project, we will acquire a complete and more detailed picture of our university’s history. So are you comfortable with this interview being recorded?

DAVE PETERS: I am.

Personal Background

Teaching at Biola

HM: Okay, just to start out, I was just kind of interested to know how you ended up here at Biola, what brought you here? What were some of the things that led you to teaching at Biola? You mentioned that you had been teaching here for forty years, so I’m just interested to know how you got here.

DP: All through high school and college, I thought I wanted to be an attorney. I watched Perry Mason as a kid and I thought I was going to be another Perry Mason, to the extent that I would become an attorney and then run for political office. Because I always wanted to run for Congress and so I went to the University of Oklahoma, got my bachelor’s degree and entered law school. And that first year of law school was the most miserable year of my life. I was twenty-one. I think it was too young, and I’m now the pre-law advisor for Biola and the average admission age today is twenty-seven; so I was too young. So I transferred after my first year—miserable year—of law school to graduate school and got my master’s in one year, in political science, and then I was looking for a job. And I wanted a college level job. And my sister had just come out to California the year before, recruited to teach in the booming southern California educational market here in the Norwalk - La Mirada area and so I sent out a resume to ten schools. And Biola was interested and they hired me and I became an instructor here in 1966. Sam Sutherland was the president, Dr. James Christian was the Dean who hired me and Dr. James O. Henry was the founding chair of the history department that was my immediate boss.

HM: What courses did you begin teaching right away?

DP: I taught actually across three disciplines. I taught political science, which my bachelor’s and master’s was in, and my undergraduate emphasis had been in speech and debate. I’d gotten a debate scholarship to go to college and so I traveled with the debate team and taught basic Speech 101, and then also taught American history so history, speech, or communications we call it now, and history.

Testimony

HM: So basically it was southern California being near your family, and Biola that you were interested in; was there anything else about Biola? Were you aware of the mission statement of Biola?

DP: Not when I heard about it. I am a - evangelical Christian. I came to Christ as a young boy. I was thirteen when my grandmother invited me to pray and accept Christ as my savior and then I had joined the church and so no, I didn’t know. I thought it was a strange name. My sister actually was teaching at Neff High School the year it opened here in town, and Todd Lewis in the communications department was one of her students and his father was a professor, here at Biola College, And in fact, I occupy in Sutherland Hall today what the office that was Vern Lewis’s office here and so Dixie, my sister that lived here, told me about the school and so I immediately went to the University of Oklahoma library and did a search and I felt that it was very socially and probably politically conservative, but I found it very appealing - the Christian environment. I had never attended a class one day in my life in a private, a parochial, oriented school like this. And so I had a great deal to learn about it but I was given a venue to teach the very subject that I love, which is politics, so I was thrilled about coming.

HM: That’s great. Did you feel that, have you felt that you’ve learned how to do…was it at all weird for you?

DP: How to do what?

HM: How to teach in a private Christian school. You mentioned that was different for you, did you adjust well to that, or was it hard at first?

DP: It was, I was fearful, but I truly loved the Lord and I love His Word and I have learned a great deal by teaching here at Biola for forty years. I have had the opportunity to be exposed to some of the greatest minds understanding biblical information and so forth. Some of the great speakers we used to have-Torrey Bible Conference was a week longschool was shut down for a week and the faculty got to deliver the Torrey speakers all over Southern California. I transported Tim LaHaye one time out to Ontario. I generally chose a Sunday. I was single and that meant I would get, if I took a speaker out on Sunday noon, then I would get lunch as well. And so that was always fun, so I learned a lot. And then, of course, I think where I really began to learn here at Biola because I was involved in my church and so forth and was a teacher and leader there. But I think the thing that really helped me deepen in God’s Word is our integration of faith and learning that we started here in the 70s. The later 70s, where we became overt, explicit and intentional about integrating the distinctiveness of Christianity into our discipline. And so ever since then I have not only used a secular text but I have used a sectarianmeaning the church-with a spiritual dimension. So I have two texts in all of my classes: the secular text and the sectarian text. And that has really caused me to become more deeply exposed to the Christian perspective. You know, the Bible speaks as to how we are to relate to government and so forth and, of course, that’s very meaningful to me. And then as one who went into politics myself, the Lord afforded me that opportunity. And so I have been able then to not only teach but also to confess Christ into politics here in La Mirada.

Integrating Faith and Teaching

HM: Before the 70s-that’s when you said they we became intentional about integration-integrating faith and learning. Before that, was that not a primary concern?

DP: It was something that just naturally overflowed from the professors’ unique and distinctive backgrounds. And because I had accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior and because I sought to be in the center of His will and wanted, as the Word communicated to me, to be the light and the salt and so forth. For example, when I did my doctoral dissertation after having been here for six years I naturally wanted to pursue Christianity and politics. I was turned down because that was suspect at the secular university. I started my coursework in ‘72 and through ‘74 and Jimmy Carter came along in ‘76. Jimmy Carter introduced to the national political sphere the concept of Christianity and a politician, someone running for political office. Because Jimmy Carter said, when asked what his faith or spiritual background was, he said, “It’s very simple: John 3:3 ‘ye must be born again.’” And so for the first time at the national level in this nation, we began to talk. Modern media began to talk about one’s faith and one’s political posture and involvement and so forth. So I greatly appreciate Jimmy Carter for that.

HM: So do you think that that had a great role in Biola’s decision to just really integrate the faith with learning?

DP: No.

HM: Jimmy Carter’s, no.

DP: No. What my point was there, that if Jimmy Carter had appeared on the scene before ‘76 - I started my doctoral dissertation in ‘74. Then that would have been open and okay because he introduced, in the halls of academia the, you know, spiritual dimension that had largely been overlooked by secular scholars and so forth. So it was okay to do that then, but I’d already started my doctoral dissertation.

HM: Just out of curiosity, what was your dissertation on?

Doctoral Dissertation

DP: My doctoral dissertation was on one person, one vote—the idea that we must have apportionment of congressional districts proportionate to the population. The Constitution says that every ten years, we will have a census and that the number of constituents in any given district must be, or one would assume constitutionally, they would be accepted all the same. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments say that we will have equal protection of the laws so when you or I vote, your vote should carry the same weight that my vote carries. But some districts had not been, for example, when Baker v. Carr, Reynolds v Simms, and a number of Supreme Court decisions were handed down. For example, here in Los Angeles County after we had reapportionment, we had fourteen state senators instead of one because the district boundary lines had not been drawn proportionate to the movement of the population. And the Supreme Court under Earl Warren said we’re going to have to have redistribution of the population equitably. And so that started about that time either the legislature would reapportion or we had court ordered reapportionment by the Supreme Court and judges

La Mirada Politics

HM: Wow, that’s really interesting. That’s awesome. I can definitely see a love for politics just in the way that you’re talking, a passion for it. I know that you were the mayor of La Mirada for some years. Do you mind just talking about your experience there 'cause you taught at Biola simultaneously, isn’t that right?

DP: Right.

HM: Okay, how did that work for you?

DP: Well, I taught here for ten years. And I was involved in politics and civic affairs and so forth, and one day a friend of mine called me and said, “Would you consider running for the city council?” And so I was thirty-three years of age and had thought I would someday, of course, want to run for political office or something. But this afforded me the opportunity to continue teaching here at Biola and to run for office, and so I ran and was elected. I also registered 500 Biola students. And so that tipped the scales in my favor because it was generally a low turnout in a municipal election. And I served continuously for twenty-five years on the city council, and also served as mayor six times and vice mayor six times

So it gave me the opportunity to continue my love for teaching and being, you know, leading students in political interests but then also to do politics. And I think that has equipped me to do a better job through the years because I do have a lot of practical insight and have made a lot of connections through the years—getting to meet our United States Senators, the Governor, the President, you know, a lot of people that I would not otherwise get to meet if I was just a poli sci prof here at Biola.

Conflicts of Interest in La Mirada Politics

HM: Did Biola encourage that involvement in the community?

DP: Not initially. I think there were people that were vying for the position and Dr. Chase was the president at the time. He was a member of Rotary and was president of the Chamber of Commerce and so forth, and I think he was nervous when I was first elected to the city council because some of his friends in Rotary and so forth were conservative and they were running. And I don’t necessarily follow a…my personal motto is political moderation in all things including moderation. So I’m a centrist but I was elected to the city council and I think that the university liked the fact that I was on the city council because Biola, which I’m very much in agreement with and in sync with, had a voice there. If it ever directly dealt, any issue directly dealt with Biola, I had to exempt myself from voting, but that put a lot of pressure on my colleagues because they knew exactly what Biola wanted and what I wanted. And so I recused myself but like the city attorney said, “Dave,” he said, “When you don’t vote it actually puts more pressure on your colleagues to vote the way they know you want them to vote.”

HM: (Laughter) Of course, of course. Do you feel, just switching directions a little bit, do you feel that Biola has changed over these forty years a huge amount? Have we stayed pretty constant, just as far as, like you mentioned faith and learning and having that integrated? Encouraging professors to be involved in the community as you were? Has Biola changed in any of that? Over the years?

DP: Yes, Heidi I think it has. When I came here we did not have as great an emphasis on academics, scholarly development of our students and so forth. We were basically transitioning from a Bible Institute to a college and later a university and yeah, I’ve seen a great change. When I came, there were under a thousand students and today we have 5,600 students, approximately. And for me as a professor and for anyone in the professorial ranks you were--when you were here four years as an instructor then you could move on to an assistant professor and an associate professor and so forth. And so that changed, I’d say starting in the 70s when there… You had to apply. You weren’t automatically given a promotion just by time. But you had to actually develop a publication list or an alternative to that public service, activities and so forth. And so we became much more, when the market produced more and more academics that were available to select from in hiring at Biola, our acuity for things academic began to change. And I think that’s been very good for this school but it’s certainly changed the culture and the environment from what it was forty years ago to today.

HM: Do you think the culture change was also good or has it been-

DP: The culture for the professors?

HM: Right, or just you said it’s changed the kind of the school culture, I guess, is that what you mean by that?

Commitment to Biola's Mission

DP: Yeah, I think Biola retains its unswerving commitment to the central mission statement of the very first day, doctrinally and so forth. And I think that is very good but I think that also looking for excellence in scholastic and academic quality is a very good thing as well. And I think that we are-we’re producing-and we’re getting and recruiting students that are higher performing students than… historically we’ve always had some, but I think that we’re getting top quality students and we also have top quality professors. And like Dr. Chase I heard say one time, who always had a sense of humor, he said, “We have a few students that are not quite up to par and we always make sure that we have a few professors that are not quite up to par so that they will match each other whatever.” (Laughter).

So the culture of our society not only among the professors here at Biola has changed over the years but the culture that we all live in, the culture that I raised my three children in and you said that your father and his brother, his twin brother came here to Biola. The culture that they found here in the 70s is very different from the culture, Heidi, that you find here. And so that is a challenge to us here at Biola: to live, to be in this world but to be sure we’re not of this world.

HM: That’s a line we all walk, I think.

DP: Yes, it’s a tension that we all experience. But I just learned a passage of Scripture, I think it’s Romans 8:18, “I consider that these present struggles may not compare to the glory that is to be revealed in us.” And so if we survive these struggles of men on earth, the glory that we are to experience is going to be awesome and fantastic.

HM: I can’t wait for that day.

DP: I want to put it off awhile.

Transitioning to a University

HM: Dr. Chase--he was involved in making Biola a university, isn’t that right?

DP: That’s right.

HM: So you were here for that then?

DP: Yes, yes. Excuse me, the first year that we were a university; I gave the convocation address that year. It was, I think it was 1981.

Peters' Convocation Address

HM: I think you’re right. What did you say in the convocation address? Do you remember what your main points were?

DP: I think I was invited to give the convocation address because Dr. Massachazzu Iwata, whose wife-I’m attending her funeral tomorrow-Dr. Iwata said we must have someone from the history or political science department give the convocation address, so I gave it. And I talked about excellence at Biola. Dr. Iwata was Phi Beta Kappa PhD from UCLA, wrote a three-volume work on the internment camps of the Japanese, because he was Japanese. And we had some really - Virginia Dolant, who was in the English department and, you know, a number of really superb quality faculty even in those early, early years that were recognized pre-eminently in their field. And so we were kind of on the threshold of stepping off into something exciting and new for us. We were truly a university in that we were a collection of various colleges like Talbot and Rosemead and so forth. So that’s what I talked about in that convocation address.

HM: So would you say that Biola College, it was just kind of a formality to be called a university? To get that accreditation as a university or was it something that we had to grow into as a college?

DP: You don’t get accreditation to - you can call yourself anything you want to.

HM: Really?

DP: You can call yourself a university even if you’re not a university.

HM: Really?

DP: Yes. And so we were a university because we had various schools. A university is a collection of colleges. We’ve got the college of Talbot and theology and Rosemead and on and on. So yeah, I think that that gave us a new vision; it prompted us to think more broadly and I know when we talked about--we had a vote on among the faculty, as I recall, or certainly a lot of discussion when Rosemead proposed to come over. Clinical school of psychology and then the Intercultural Studies School, then the business school became the business college and so those are our individual schools within the university. So we are truly a university and were a little bit of one before we gave ourselves that name.

HM: That name - Okay that makes sense. I thought this had something to do with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges but I was incorrect in thinking that…

DP: Well I’m sure that they were apprised of what was going on.

HM: Right. Okay, what would you say are the greatest things you accomplished or some milestones in the history department that you were involved in?

DP: I’m not in the history department, I’m political science.

HM: Political science, excuse me, excuse me, sorry.

Milestones in Political Science Department

DP: Uh well we just, it appears that we’re going to, I’ve been here for forty years and we’ve had a concentration or emphasis in political science but we’ve not had a major, per se. And this is too long in coming. I think we’ve probably, it’s due to my poor leadership or whatever that we haven’t had a political science major but I called sister schools-ten sister schools-just this past semester and learned of how many majors they have, how many student they have majoring in political science, and also there’s only one other sister school like ours that has an emphasis or degree in public administration, which we have here now.

Major in Public Administration

That was something that I was able to introduce, and we were able to have here for a while, is a major in Public Administration, and that is to train young men and women to be in administration, government management, you know, for example: the city manager, the person who runs La Mirada, is a public administration major. It’s a great place to put graduates that have a great deal of influence on government at all levels: federal, state, county, local and so forth. And so we actually implemented a Public Administration major in conjunction with the Business Administration department and then later we had a big push to be more effective cost-wise and if you didn’t have twenty-five majors, it was eliminated. And that’s before we had shared governance and I was not consulted. They just told me the major’s ending and it ended. And that was a mistake in my judgment.

HM: So you’re working to get that back, right?

DP: We have, well we don’t have a major in public administration but we now have a major, I believe, that’s coming out in the new catalog in political science

HM: Political science, okay. You mentioned shared governance. Would you mind just telling a little bit more about that?

Shared Governance in Biola's Administration

DP: Well, Biola transitioned from a Bible institute to a liberal arts college, and then we became a university and, as we began to get scholars and students from outstanding schools, as our faculty have graduated from… We had people coming here that were accustomed to being involved in the planning and the development of the curriculum and having a voice in it and really, to that point in time, we really had an administratively-run school. The dean, and then we got a provost, and we had a very strong leadership from the administration. And in a truly collegial environment, you need to have input from the faculty because the faculty are the ones that are trained and equipped in the respective disciplines, to know what is best for the students and for the people that are learning, what is being taught in the classrooms. And so we began to see the emergence of a desire on the part of people from highly diverse backgrounds academically all over the United States and world coming here to want to have a voice. And so there was a bit of gentlemanly diplomatic tension. I would say between the administration and the faculty but we are accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and so we began to communicate, of course. We’re consulted as faculty when they come and evaluate us and so we revealed that we wanted a greater input in the decisions and issues that were to affect our students and us, as far as academics and scholarship. And so we began, we actually formed the School of Arts and Science faculty organization, and I was elected to the first chair of that. I think simply because, not because I’m any kind of a great leader but because I had experience in the local community. And then following that we moved on to form a university-wide organization and I was also elected to be the first chair of that. And that was the faculty town hall meeting.

So we had the School of Arts and Science faculty organization and then we needed a wider university-governing body, and that became the faculty town hall meeting. And so I was on the ad hoc committee for both of those and then the first few years I was the chair and we began to implement a policy of letting the faculty have a greater voice in issues of academic, scholastic criteria for promotion and tenure and what components and elements would be necessary for us to be truly an assistant professor, an associate professor, a full professor or whatever. And so it’s been a landmark accomplishment. And I didn’t in any way, shape or form accomplish it unilaterally. It was by a collective effort of all of the faculty wanting that and moving in a very Godly, an orderly systematic manner, to accomplish it.

Faculty Town Halls

HM: Have the faculty town hall meeting and the School of Arts and Sciences faculty organization, have they continued to meet? Is it continuing to be a success and to work?

DP: They continued to meet but I’m sorry that we don’t meet any more often than we do and I think that because we are all busy professors and so forth. We set it up so that we could have as many meetings as we need but I would say most of our faculty today are militantly trying to accomplish their jobs that they’re given to do. We teach in the undergraduate school, we teach four classes a semester. And we generally have a lot of students in our classes. And so you don’t have a lot of time to serve on those committees. It takes a lot of time to have faculty town hall meetings and school of arts and sciences faculty organization meetings and so we do meet-we meet at least twice a month in the School of Arts and Science faculty organization, but we only meet twice a semester in the faculty town hall meeting. And so in order to be a more viable, as far as I’m concernedand I’m an activist-and I’m one that wants to see a more, constant aggressive input of the voice of faculty and so forth in the running of the school. Now I think it would be better if we had more people more pro-actively engaged.

HM: Do you think that had changed with new faculty, that the new faculty aren’t quite as interested in that?

DP: That is correct.

HM: So you would say as it’s continued to develop?

DP: And they’re satisfied. They’re satisfied with the administration-I think is very desirous of listening to-they are taking our pulse to see what we want. For example, when we got a new dean or when we got the faculty town hall meeting, the School of Arts and Sciences wanted the school to have a vice provost that would be conscious of some of the things that were overlooked administratively among some of the faculty and so forth. And we brought to this campus Gary Miller and today, Gary Miller was promoted because he was so well-received and doing such a good job and very sensitive to what the faculty wanted. Provost—he’s provost. And so I think that is the source of Gary Miller to our faculty, because of the involvement of the shared governance community here.

HM: So even though you aren’t meeting as much, you are still getting that because of Gary Miller?

DP: Well, because of the attitude and spirit of the faculty and the administration are, I think that the administration has matured and grown and understood that this is something that you will get a better product if we get the input and voice of the faculty.

HM: Were they always like that?

DP: No, they weren’t, that’s why we got the two organizations going.

HM: Okay, You mentioned earlier, before we started the interview, I’m switching directions completely.

DP: Okay.

HM: So do you have anything to add to what we were talking about before, shared governance or anything that you would like to say?

DP: No, no.

Andrew McNally

HM: You mentioned that you had a lot of memories. You started talking about Andrew McNally, and what this building was named for. Would you mind just talking a little bit about that?

Olive Grove and Neff Mansion

DP: Yeah, I’m a historian, and when I first came to La Mirada, in fact the first summer school that we ever had at Biola was the summer of 1967, and I was invited to teach a course in history. And so, you know, Tip O’Neill, in politics, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, “All politics is local politics.” And I could say the same thing about history. All history is local history, and so the place we should start learning history is where we are. And so the first thing I did, of course, my BA, MA, and PhD was all in history but I wanted to learn the local history. And so I found who the local city historian was and he became a very good friend of mine; in fact, he even attended my church and his funeral was conducted at our church. He was the city historian, Bob Camp, who collected a lot of detail and artifacts and information and oral history of people in La Mirada. And so I started meeting him at the Neff Mansion. Andrew McNally, the founder of Rand-McNally Map Company, bought La Mirada in 1888-paid $54 an acre for three thousand, three hundred acres. And he built a mansion herewhich is now called the Neff Mansion because his daughter married a man by the name of Neff-and he built this mansion, this beautiful house, built in 1895, and it was the headquarters for the ranch which was the 3300 acres and it was at that time recognized as the largest olive grove in the world. And today we have the last contiguous remnant of olive grove of La Mirada up here in the corner of our campus, just across from the fire department; that solid grouping of trees. Every house along Biola Avenue had a olive tree in front of it when the housing development was built. So La Mirada was an olive grove and that McNally family and heirs, after Mr. McNally died in 1904, kept the ranch intact for fifty-three years.

And that’s why, when Sam Sutherland started looking for a place to locate the Bible Institute and move it away from downtown Los Angeles-because Sam Sutherland was a visionary and he knew that parents did not want to send their kids to the increasingly urban interior of Los Angeles-and so they started looking around and he got on the train with the Board of Trustees, came out here. Andrew McNally had built a depot here so the train would stop here and pick up his olives and so forth, and the depot was at the end of Biola Avenue and Stage Road where there’s six big palm trees that Andrew McNally planted in the early 1900s. They’re still there and, anyway, Sutherland brought the Board of Trustees out here on the train. The train stopped, they walked up here to this site and this is when Biola bought this land about 1955. And they bought actually land farther than the present northern boundary of the campus, up more toward Tacuba, and they sold after holding that for two or three years. They sold that, took the profit from that and built Sutherland Hall, which was the first big classroom building and so forth.

HM: And they named it after Dr. Sutherland.

DP: Dr. Sam Sutherland, who had the vision to segue from the Bible Institute in downtown Los Angeles out into urban La Mirada. We’ve had white flight in most of the major American cities all around the country and the same thing happened here, and that’s why for the last twenty-five years-except with the exception of Jim Hahn-most of the mayors of Los Angeles have been minority individuals. So he was wise in bringing us out here, and so I’ve really developed a great love for the history of La Mirada. And one of the last times I was mayor, we received an award and I flew to Sacramento and received an award for the city of La Mirada for the best combining of funds from the private sector and the public sector for historic renovation. ‘Cause we renovated the Neff Mansion that Andrew McNally built and there’s an old barn that’s left there; we renovated that building and Gail Wilson, Pete Wilson’s wife in the governor’s mansion or in the governor’s office in the capital of Sacramento, gave me an award for the city of La Mirada. For we spent a million dollars in refurbishing the Neff Mansion, the Neff barn, and the George House which are the three historic buildings, the oldest buildings of La Mirada. So I was involved in that on the city council and that was exciting. So all of my students I take to the Neff Mansion every semester to learn a little bit about the history of La Mirada because you’re going to graduate from Biola and when you graduate from Biola, you are going to be talking about La Mirada the rest of your life. You should know something about the history of La Mirada and my students are exposed to it.

History of Campus Buildings

HM: Absolutely. So Sutherland and then McNally, do you know any history of the other buildings particularly in Biola, not necessarily La Mirada, but do you know about Biola history as well?

DP: Yes, I was here for the last forty years so… But I would say I saw the gymnasium go up, I saw the cafeteria expanded. I saw they had Sutherland Hall, the science building and a remnant of the cafeteria and Crowell Hall when I came. All the others have been added. Well, I would have to say Stewart Hall was, the first part of Stewart Hall, named for Lyman Stewart, founder of the Union Oil Company. I lived the first year and a half in the dorm. and ate in the cafeteria because it was part of my deal. I told them when they hired me, I wanted to pay back my college debt and I looked just like a student and so I lived in the dorm and counseled five students who were on academic probation that Sam Sutherland did not want to drop out of Biola.

HM: (Cough). Excuse me; sorry…sorry I have a cough.

DP: I understand my wife has one right now too.

Ray Myers' Family

HM: So you were talking you counseled five…

DP: Five young men who were on academic probation. Ray Myers, who built most of these buildings at Biola: Sutherland Hall, Marshburn Hall, Crowell Hall, Myers Hall he named it for…

HM: Himself?

DP: No, his daughter. (Laughter) And so I advised his son. That’s what I did for my room and board first year and half while I paid back my college debt.

HM: And did you enjoy that?

Meeting His Wife

DP: Yes, I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed moving off campus and living in an apartment, finally. And then I met my wife here at Biola.

HM: At Biola? Was she a student?

DP: Yes she was, but we could not date. Dr. Christian said I could not date any student because I looked so much like a student and so then, as soon as she graduated… And I had admired her at a distance for a long time and then I had known she was engaged. And then I learned that she wasn’t engaged and I called her up and we carried on a three month long-distance relationship of me driving. I put ten thousand miles on my car driving from here to Reed Lake and Dinuba, California. And we were married and, for the last thirty-five years, we have been married. We produced three children, two of whom have graduated from Biola. My wife’s great-grandfather attended Biola; her grandfather attended Biola; her mother and father attended Biola; she attended Biola and our daughter and son attended Biola. So we’re a fifth generation Biola family.

Wife's Biola Connection

HM: So then her or her great-grandfather, grandfather were in the downtown…

DP: And grandfather and mother and father.

HM: Oh mother and father were in downtown too, as well.

DP: Right, she was born in the Queen of Angels Hospital in the 1940s, I’ll say. You never talk about a woman’s age. But anyway, then she was raised in Nigeria, West Africa, where her parents were missionaries. But they went to the missionary school in Edison and so they were all downtown and Sherry was actually–my wife was actually--the first year she lived at Biola, upperclassmen got to live in the first dorms on campus and they had to bus students back and forth. So she slept downtown, came out here and ate at the cafeteria because she was a freshman. Then, as she progressed, she got to stay in the dorms out here.

HM: Oh so they kept dorms in downtown LA.

DP: Yes, because they didn’t have enough dorms when they moved out here.

HM: So then you’re definitely supporters of Biola or her family is as well then.

DP: I would say that we probably are. If I could send my children to any school in the world, it would be this school. Unquestionably. And so, of my three, two had the wisdom to come here; the other one (chuckle) didn’t.

HM: Laugh. Oh, we won’t talk about that.

DP: We won’t discuss that. He’s an air traffic controller today and quite happy. He would be happier if he had graduated from Biola.

HM: And you’re sure of that?

DP: I know that.

HM: That’s great. Well, I’m done with all the questions I have. Is there anything you would like to add, just about Biola in general or anything that you would like to talk about?

Concluding Thoughts

DP: One last thing I think, Heidi, that I would say is from my experience of having been here for forty years. My anecdotal observation is that all of the students and all of the faculty and people that are at Biola are here because God led them here. Uniquely, probably your story is-and everyone that’s involved in this operation right here this afternoon-are here at Biola because God led them to Biola. And so He continues to do that today.

HM: I agree with that.

DP: So this is a place that is really… God’s hand is on Biola. It has been for almost a hundred years now and my prayer is that it will for the next one hundred years. You and I probably won’t be here a hundred years from now but I hope and pray that God will continue to sustain this school and that it will be able to hold forth the Word of Light unto a darkened world, which is what Al Sanders used to say on the Biola Hour.

HM: Thank you very much, Dr. Peters. I appreciate it.

DP: Okay, my pleasure.