INTRODUCTION TO

DON LaROSE

          Mildred Stout was 20 years old; her husband Adam LaRose was 24 when they were married.  Adam had grown up on Union Hill, a small community across the Lehigh Valley from Lehighton, Pennsylvania.  Weissport and East Weissport were at the foot of Union Hill along the banks of the Lehigh River.  The Lehigh Valley Railroad main line ran down the west side of the River.  The New Jersey Central Railroad and the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Canal ran down the east side.  There were still remnants of the old canal which had been washed out by floods a few years earlier.  Mildred grew up on the family farm along the Big Creek (pronounced: "Crik"), about 15 miles east of Lehighton.  The 100 plus acre farm was just to the south of her grandparents farm in the Pohopoco Valley.

          The young couple set up housekeeping first in Allentown, Pennsylvania, later moving to the suburb of Emmaus.  Adam was employed by the Post Office, but soon landed a job in the accounting department at Allenton-Bethlehem Gas Company, a division of UGI Corporation.  Early in their marriage, Adam's boss, Ed Flexer, and a friend, Gene Koontz, convinced the young couple to begin attending weekly Bible study classes at a church in Allentown.  Neither had much upbringing in any church, and both came into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ within a couple of weeks of each other.

          Three years into this marriage came the first of their two children: a boy whom they named Donald.  A daughter, Sandra was born four years later.  The family attended, and was very active in, the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church in Emmaus.  The small eastern denomination later changed its name to Bible Fellowship Churches.  But Adam, who had become a student of the Bible, also taught Bible classes from time to time at the Reformed Church and the Evangelical Congregational Church in Emmaus.

          When Donald (also known as Donny) was 9 years old, the family moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Adam's employer, UGI Corporation, had purchased the Lancaster County Gas Company from Pennsylvania Power and Light, and transferred Adam there as head of the accounting department.  In Lancaster, the family attended and became active in Calvary Independent Church, where Adam served in various capacities from Sunday School Superintendent to Church Treasurer.  Don was active in church and in Lancaster Youth for Christ.

          After graduating from Manheim Township High School in suburban Lancaster, Don went on to the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, where he met Eunice Miller.  She was from Murrysville, near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and her father, D. North Miller, was the founder and pastor of Calvary Bible Church in Monroeville.  Don and Eunice were married in 1961, and moved to Berwick, Pennsylvania and later to LaPorte, Indiana as Youth for Christ Director.

          While a student at Moody Bible Institute, Don had been involved in volunteer announcing and playing dramatic parts on programs on WMBI AM and FM in Chicago.  He had also spent one summer working as a staff announcer for WRVB-FM, a Christian radio station in Madison, Wisconsin.  So it wasn't long till Don, along with his wife and their first daughter, Janet, moved on to Madison, where Don went back to work at WRVB-FM as Assistant Manager.  It was during their stay in Madison that their second daughter, Joyce, was born.  It was also during this time that Don began looking seriously for a radio station for sale that he might turn into a Christian station.  Don and his wife visited many stations, but things just didn't seem to work out.  The doors always seemed to close for a variety of reasons.  At one point, Don and Eunice visited a station in Ticonderoga, New York.  They felt this was the one.  But the owner, a CBS executive in New York City refused to sell it to them saying that he felt they were too young to take on the responsibility.  At that point the couple began looking for an available frequency where they might build a brand new station.

          During a visit to Utica, New York to investigate an available FM frequency, Don and his wife ran into a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor who indicated that there was a group of people in nearby Syracuse wanting to organize with the purpose of building a Christian radio station there.  With a telephone number in hand, Don returned to Madison, called Norm Hinkle, and that began a three year adventure of applying for, and going through the long process with the FCC to get a license.  In the meantime, knowing that he needed to be closer to Syracuse, and to Washington, D.C., Don got a job with the Peter and John Radio Fellowship at WRBS in Baltimore, Maryland.  During that time, he also returned to college, attending the University of Maryland--Baltimore County in suburban Catonsville.

          Every other week for that three year period, Don would get off work at midnight Friday night, load up the family and drive all night to Syracuse, where he would work all day Saturday and Sunday on ground work for the new station.  He would leave Sunday evening, many times after speaking at a local church, for the return trip to Baltimore, arriving in time to shower and head for classes at the University.  But in 1969, WMHR, the Mars Hill Broadcasting Company, became a reailty with the very first program from the new studios and tower built on top of Onondaga Hill just to the southwest of Syracuse.  The first sounds to come on that Sunday afternoon sign on, were the strains of "To God Be the Glory!"

          During the nearly five years Don was manager and part owner of WMHR, he spoke in churches of many denominations almost every Sunday.  Some of those were to fill the pulpit for vacationing pastors.  At some he was a special speaker to present the ministry of the radio station.  At still others, the church was between pastors, and asked him to come for Sunday services one or more times until they obtained a new pastor.  On several of those occasions, churches asked Don to consider being their pastor.  Don, of course, turned them down.  However, he became more and more impressed that perhaps the Lord was leading him in that direction.

          One of the churches that invited him to speak, and then asked if he would come back as a candidate to be their pastor, was the First Baptist Church in Maine, New York.  It was located about 60 miles south of Syracuse.  It was quite a struggle, this matter of becoming a pastor.  Don had been in Christian ministry all of his adult life.  However, becoming a pastor was not something he was ready to consider, and Don and the Lord had many go-rounds with it.  Finally Don decided he would put out a fleece.

          You may remember that Gideon (one of the Old Testament Jewish Judges) put out a "fleece" because he didn't want to do what God had told him to do.  That's exactly where Don was.  He put it this way in his mind: "If God was going to make me do something other than what I wanted, I wanted Him to make it so clear that I could not decline."  As he looked back later, Don said, "I can't believe I had the audacity to question God like that, and to even say, 'No!'"  But God answered and brought a series of events into Don's life which left no doubt that God wanted he and his family in the pastorate.

          And that is how Don LaRose and his family found themselves pastoring the First Baptist Church of Maine, New York.  What happened next is a story of intrigue, murder, kidnapping, electronic mind alteration and much more.  It is the story contained on a free eBook on this website.  We hope you will read it, and then leave your comments.