I’ve enjoyed being a nobody,” Milton Murray once said. “I have never been a Vice President. I’m a creator of VPs.

Pioneering Adventist fundraiser Milton Murray passed away on Dec 9, at age 87.

Ah, 'tis the season for food.

At a Seventh-day Adventist church in Florida, a "Shoving Match Ensues After Church Runs Out Of Turkeys." Folks ran out of food in Washington DC as well.

On the Adventist News Network front:

Ansel Oliver writes a nice obit for James Chase, former General Conference Communication director.

And Let's Talk revived for a fifth year with Jan Paulsen conversing with young Adventist professionals in the DC area.

A few highlights. . .

On race-segregated conferences:

This morning, while reading the New York Times on the Annie Le murder investigation, I saw the following:

Dennis Smith, the pastor of the New Haven Seventh-Day Adventist Church, who has been speaking for the Le and Widawsky families, appeared on the “Today” show on Thursday and called the arrest “wonderful news.”

This was a week of SDA giveaways, and Black Voice News reports that pop singer Little Richard, an Oakwood College alum*, participated by tossing free rolled up posters into a crowd at San Manuel Casino in Southern California, promoting the book "Finding Peace Within," the retitled version of Ellen White's "Steps to Christ." According to the article, Little Richard has been combining music performance and his unique ministry for 20 years.

BREAKING NEWS: Two men with ties to Adventist education made headlines this week in unrelated cases involving allegations of sex with minors. One charge involved the principal of the Eastern Shore Junior Academy in Sudlersville, Maryland. The other involved the former boys dean at Ozark Adventist Academy in Gentry, Arkansas.

In order to make room for all the new converts being harvested through Year of Evangelism efforts, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has asked local churches to remove all members who read Spectrum.

"The healthcare industry isn't for the faint of heart," writes Ansel Oliver of the Adventist News Network.

So says hospital system chief executive Ruthita Fike. She coordinates with physicians, implements government regulations and balances mind-boggling cost structures. It keeps her and many of her colleagues working only slightly fewer hours than the Emergency Department interns' 80-hour workweeks.

Staving off closing, workers plan to buy Diversified Plastics plant which has been on the campus of Sunnydale Academy Adventist School near Centralia, MO, since 1976.

Learn more about Adventist businesses dealing with recession in this report from the gifted jedi at Adventist News Network:

• Ex-prisoners in Fiji are given a second chance;
• Icons felled at Avondale College;
• Students to get their big break on satellite TV;