Adventist News Networks weekly segment on Seventh-day Adventist history (http://news.adventist.org/)
Dr. David Trim:
Welcome to this week in Adventist history, a week remembering beloved leaders.
On April 8, 2010, Charles E. Dudley died. Dudley was president of the South Central Conference from 1962 to 1993, the longest serving conference president in Adventist history.
Two days later in 1862, Irwin Henry Evans was born. Evans was a versatile church administrator, serving as president of the Michigan Conference, the General Conference Association, the Mission Board, the Review and Herald, the Asiatic, North American, and Far Eastern Divisions, and vice president of the General Conference. Evans was also Treasurer of the General Conference, a post he held for six years, during which time he laid the financial infrastructure for worldwide missions in the first half of the 20th century. Additionally, Evans was an author, educator, and songwriter, being largely responsible for the creation of the modern Church Hymnal, penning the hymn, "Welcome, Day of Sweet of Repose."
On April 11, 1903, William Ambrose Spicer was elected Secretary of the General Conference. Before his election Spicer had served as a missionary on three continents, and as Secretary of the Mission Board for two years, from where he had tremendous influence over church missions. Spicer brought this mission-mindedness into his role of Secretary, which he held for almost two decades, quite simply, revolutionizing the position, molding it to its modern shape.
That was this week in Adventist history.