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Ray Mossholder–
From
Castaway to Boomerang By Ray Mossholder (’59) and Bob Andrew (’58)
Ray Mossholder’s (’59) closest friends say his middle name should be “Laughter!” They don’t think of this former radio news director turned evangelist as slaphappy. But, he explains, “I see life now at 72 as a Christian who knows Romans 8:28 is true. ‘ALL things do work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.’ My life is very good!”
“Acting is in my DNA,” Ray quips. “I started at the age of five, kept it up in high school, and have never stopped.” Ray’s most recent role was as Pontius Pilate at the Riviera Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, the week before Easter 2003. He explains, “All the churches of Las Vegas have a huge audition to do the Passion Play, and the Riviera gives them a massive ballroom for the nightly performances leading up to Easter. Tons of people gave their lives to Christ that week.”
Ray also performed at a dinner theatre in Las Vegas during that time in a mystery comedy called Marriage Can Be Murder! Ray Ray wasn’t always as happy as he is now. When he entered Pep- plans to do more acting at Pepperdine’s Fifth Quarter next May perdine on the old Vermont campus in September of 1954, Ray with his friends, Jack Schlatter (’61) and Joanne Watson (’57). was depressed by being 50 pounds overweight and feeling “like a nerd.” His parents paid for his tuition, boarding, and cafeteria At Pepperdine, Ray was in Carousel, The Merry Widow, You Never Can Tell, Light up the Sky, and Macbeth. He was also exmeals, but Ray did not like the food there. tremely active in psychodrama, doing impromptu skits with “It wasn’t like Mom’s fabulous home cooking, and so I poked at other actors as the audience suggested what they wanted to see. the food instead of downing it like I always had when I’d been Later that led Ray to impromptu acting at the Hungry Eye in home in San Jose, California. I went to Ralph’s market every San Francisco, California, with some of the people who became lunch hour and drank a quart of nonfat milk. Otherwise I just the original cast of Saturday Night Live. Ray was married and teaching high school by then, so he did not go with them. ate what would get me by,” he said. At Pepperdine from 1954 to 1959, Ray learned from friends as well as teachers. “Pepperdine wonderfully prepared me for the many different roles I’d play in life,” he said. After teaching for six years, and a year of attending Fuller Theological Seminary, Ray became a rock–and-roll disc jockey! He was on KKIS in Pittsburgh, California. Soon KCBS in San Francisco asked him to become a freelance news reporter for them. Then KEAR-FM in San Francisco hired him as news director and communicator to teens. From 1966 to 1970 he did half-hour newscasts twice a day, wrote and delivered commentaries, talked to teens on air, Ray was recreational hall chairman during his junior year and interviewed everyone from Dr. Billy Graham to Simon and and was elected student body vice president his senior year. Garfunkel. Then a tragedy elevated Ray’s position when student body president Dick Bachus (’58) could not serve his term because he “Then in 1970,” Ray says, “God called me to go unto all the world. I left radio to become a national representative for Youth with had leukemia. a Mission, then an associate pastor to Dr. Jack Hayford at the Ray was a member of the Tri Phi Fraternity, the Honor Society, famous Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California. He trained and appeared twice in Who’s Who in American Colleges and Uni- me as an evangelist. Jack and I still have a very warm relationversities. In his junior year as a speech and drama major, he won ship.” a scholarship to play summer stock in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He credits Dr. James Young, his drama director at Pepperdine, Later he was staff evangelist for Dr. Tommy Barnett in the largfor his scholarship. “We did a different play every three nights! est Assemblies of God church in America and did more than 50 marriage seminars for Dr. Pat Robertson and The 700 Club at It was fabulous.”
“One February day that year in the guy’s dorm, I looked in a mirror and was suddenly in shock. I’d lost the entire 50 pounds!” Ray’s was the classic Ugly Duckling story, and he suddenly saw a swan in that mirror! He told himself, “I don’t look half-bad! In fact, I look pretty good!” That incident gave Ray far greater confidence than he had ever known. “I still had a lot of personality traits I needed to change, but I became more at ease around girls as well as guys. By my sophomore year, I had friends that I warmly remember to this day.”
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