Alum, Administrator Featured Speaker at OBU’s Church Vocations Dinner

April 18, 2002

A graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University who has served at the university for more than 20 years will be recognized at the church vocation students banquet Monday night. 

Dr. Dick Rader, vice president for religious life at OBU, is the 2002 alumni award recipient and featured speaker for the annual banquet. OBU religion students also will be recognized at the banquet for outstanding academics and service in different areas of Christian studies.

In addition to his other administrative role at OBU, Rader also serves as dean of the school of Christian service, a post he has maintained since 1985. OBU named him WMU professor of missions in 1989.

He began teaching at OBU in 1979 after more than a decade in Zambia and Johannesburg, South Africa. As missionaries with the Southern Baptist Convention's Foreign Mission Board, now International Mission Board, he and his wife, Sue, '61, served in Zambia with the Theological Education by Extension program in Copperbelt, and the Baptist Theological Seminary in Lusaka. Rader also taught at the Baptist Theological College of Southern Africa in Johannesburg.

Prior to his time on the mission field, Rader served as pastor of First Baptist Church in Mill Creek and Little City Baptist Church in Madill and youth director at First Baptist Church in Midwest City.

Rader has written and edited several books, including "Christian Ethics in an African Context," "The Fibers of our Faith," and his most recent, "A Road Beyond the Suffering," which was co-written with his wife. He also has written numerous articles for national Baptist publications.

A native of Midwest City, Rader earned a bachelor of arts degree in English from OBU in 1963. He holds master of divinity and doctoral degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The Raders have five grown sons and 12 grandchildren.