Word: rex
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...baby he lay swaddled behind the piano while his parents led revival services in the tabernacles and tents of the Bible Belt. Once, after he had learned to walk, his father collared him as he ran across the stage and spanked him soundly to demonstrate proper child training. Young Rex Humbard reformed, but real conversion had to wait until he was a shy 13, listening to a visiting evangelist call for converts. He went forward, he recalls, "to open my heart to Jesus," and it happened. "Light flooded my soul and I became a new person. In that moment...
...professional blend of folksy, pep-talk piety and bubbly, inspirational hillbilly music-a Norman Vincent Apeale to a Lawrence Welk constituency. The music is no mere come-on; in the hour-long show, Humbard's sermon usually takes little more than 15 minutes. The Cathedral Singers-including Rex's wife Maude Aimee, a pert, peppery, brunette soprano who becomes properly demure for the Gospel numbers-are the stars. Smoothly pancaked, eyelashed, and carefully coiffed in styles of the '60s, the girls come on in bright gowns or knee-length frocks color-coordinated for the cameras. The songs...
That kind of joyful, superconfident soul balm is probably the reason many listeners tune in. But as more than 20,000 letters a week attest, many others are troubled people seeking help. For them, an important part of the standard Humbard service begins when Rex walks over to a prayer table piled high with letters and-a scrupulous touch -microfilm copies of all those that could not fit on it. "Every name," he assures listeners, "is on the table." After the prayer there are down-home introductions of visiting notables, more music, Humbard's sermon and the final "altar...
...class at the cathedral last week, Humbard's associate Wayne Jones deplored the huge waste of the war. Humbard's appeal, as his large Canadian following shows, extends well beyond political loyalties. To many devoted fans, he is mainly a dear friend. One West Virginia woman wrote Rex to say that she puts on her Sunday best to watch his program...
...staff spends long hours opening letters and tabulating contributions in three sorting and counting rooms. Others are occupied duplicating tapes of the service and dispatching them to TV stations. The work, up to 18 hours a day for the indefatigable Humbard, pays off. It has been 19 years since Rex dropped out of his parents' traveling revival troupe to start his own church in Akron with $65 in his pocket. Again and again he has mortgaged the cathedral to buy more television time; eventually listeners become happy contributors. So far in 1971, mail contributions have totaled more than...