Longest-serving Evangel employee dies

Elizabeth "Betty" Adelle Chase, Evangel University's longest-serving employee, died April 17. She was 84.

Chase worked at Evangel for 56 years, serving as its first director of media relations and as editor of Vision magazine for three decades. She also became the university's first archivist in 1988.

Chase retired in 2007 and served as a volunteer until 2009, when the university's board of directors named the archives the Betty A. Chase Evangel University Archives in her honor.

"She had the opportunity to observe Evangel from the time that it was a vision to its present status," Evangel President Robert Spence said in the release. "We are deeply indebted to her for her years of dedicated service to the Lord, his church and to Evangel.”

Chase also was a longtime student of the college, having been the only person to have taken classes at Evangel in every decade from the 1950s to the 1990s. She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in history in 1994.

“Betty was without doubt the most amazing person with whom I’ve worked in my 35 years at Evangel,” Woodvall Moore, Evangel director of library and media services, said in the release. “She had a remarkable memory, and everything she produced was absolutely accurate in every detail.”

Chase was preceded in death by her parents and a sister, Doris Cascio. She is survived by her sisters Elinor Almquist, Mary Geiger and Janet Collins.

Visitation is scheduled 6-8 p.m. April 21 at Gorman-Scharpf Funeral Home, 1947 E. Seminole Ave. A memorial service is scheduled 10 a.m. April 22 in the recital hall of Evangel's Barnett Fine Arts Center, 1111 N. Glenstone Ave.[[In-content Ad]]