Former Visitor Editor Dies

Pictured below: Don Roth is pictured receiving the 2008 Alumni President’s Award from the Alumni Association of the Loma Linda University School of Medicine for his ongoing affiliation with them on alumni projects and the recruitment of physicians and dentists for mission service. 

Don A. Roth, long considered the “PR person” for the Seventh-day Adventist church for the past 60 years and a former Visitor editor, passed away on Tuesday evening at his home in Loma Linda, Calif. “I spent 15 happy years in the Columbia Union Conference,” Roth wrote last year in a letter to the current Visitor editor. “We had a great team at the union office and I thoroughly enjoyed those years.”

Roth edited the Visitor from 1954 to 1965, while also serving as the Columbia Union Conference public relations and radio-TV secretary. In 2009 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 20th annual Society of Adventist Communicators Convention held in Newport Beach, Calif.

A reporter, editor, press relations specialist, book author, and special events organizer, he has worked at every level of the church organization, from his local congregation to the Seventh-day Adventist Church World Headquarters.

The funeral service will be at 2 p.m., Sunday, July 31, at the Calimesa Seventh-day Adventist Church at 391 Myrtlewood Drive, Calimesa, CA. The burial will be private, for family members and invited guests.

In lieu of flowers, Roth family members suggest donations to the Don Roth Deferred Mission Appointee Fund, which has been established at Loma Linda University (LLU). Make checks payable to LLU with “Don Roth” on the memo line and mail them to the Office of Philanthropy, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA 92350. They will send a letter and receipt to each donor as well as a letter of notification to Elder Roth’s family.

Cards and letters can be sent to Doris Roth and the family at 11075 Benton St., #116, Loma Linda, CA 92354.