Written by Karen Porter | 19 October 2009

Don A. Roth (B.A., ‘50) was awarded the Society of Adventist Communicators Lifetime Achievement Award at their recent convention in Newport Beach, California.

“I was totally surprised at the award, and appreciated the recognition,” Roth said. His wife, Doris (B.A.,’50), and several family members and friends celebrated with him at the awards presentation on October 17, 2009.

In his nearly 60 years of professional experience, Roth has significantly contributed to reporting Seventh-day Adventist Church news and features in the denomination and in the public press. 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 General Conference.

Roth’s love of writing and editing began in 1944, when he edited his school’s paper at Greater New York Academy. During his college years at Washington Adventist University (then Washington Missionary College) in Maryland, this love continued as he worked at the College Press, joined the staff of the Sligonian, the school paper, and in his senior year edited the paper.

From the day his byline appeared over a feature story in the Sligonian to his present articles in this local paper, Roth has always had a story to tell.

During the height of the Vietnam War, Roth was the church’s chief reporter on the work of Adventists in Vietnam. Numerous articles under his byline documented events such as the visit of the Loma Linda University heart surgery team, and the closure of the church’s work in Vietnam and the evacuation of its associated personnel.

Roth’s personal relationship with the U.S. news agencies in Saigon was a key to the evacuation process for over 430 Vietnamese when South Vietnam fell to Hanoi in April 1975. Through his AP and UPI contacts, Roth learned the evacuation procedure for 36 women and children whom he escorted to Guam. On Guam, he located the U.S. Navy pressroom, where he composed a five-page, single-spaced description of his final hours in Saigon. This document served as a valuable resource that he and others used as a reference for later articles and books.

Much of Roth’s legacy as an Adventist communicator is the record of actions, events, news, and human interest stories published in the journals and newsletters he edited: the weekly Columbia Union Visitor, 1954-1965; Far Eastern Division Outlook, 1965-1975, and currently the AIMS Journal for the Association of International Medical Services, Loma Linda School of Medicine Alumni Association. He also edited several newsletters, including the Far Eastern Division Furlougher, and most recently the Calimesa News and Notes, which he edited for 14 years.

The SDA Periodical Index lists more than 420 articles published under his byline, primarily in the Adventist Review. However, the list is incomplete; it does not include articles he wrote for the Visitor and other church periodicals before going to Singapore in 1965 as assistant secretary and public relations director, nor the hundreds of articles he has written for non-Adventist papers.

Roth has written or coauthored four books including a story of a Borneo witch doctor who converted to Christianity called Mundahoi, and autobiographies of himself and his wife, Called to Serve, and has assisted and/or encouraged a number of other persons to write books of their own.

If asked, many Seventh-day Adventists would name Roth the PR person of the Adventist Church in the past 60 years. Few others possess his breadth of experience and length of service in communication and reporting for the benefit of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.