Saturday, August 11, 2007

Akron Televangelist Rex Humbard 'Fighting for his Life'

Pioneering televangelist Rex Humbard is ''fighting for his life'' in a Florida hospital, according to his son, Rex Humbard Jr.

The former Akron minister, who will turn 88 Monday, broke his hip on July 23 and underwent total hip replacement, his son said. Complications followed.

The senior Humbard, who suffers from congestive heart failure, is being treated at JFK Hospital in Atlantis, Fla.

''Dad is fighting for his life now,'' his son said in an e-mail. ''Please keep him in your prayers.''

Humbard and his wife, Maude Aimee, 85, live in Lantana, Fla. Their four children have been with him daily at the hospital.

Humbard was the first evangelist to have a weekly nationwide program in America. His television ministry began in Akron in 1952. By the mid-1970s, 2,000 television channels carried his program. His Cathedral of Tomorrow in Cuyahoga Falls later became home to evangelist Ernest Angley's Grace Cathedral.

Thirty years ago, on Aug. 18, 1977, Humbard delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Elvis Presley.

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