M.B. Miller, Founded School Of Economics At Seattle Pacific

M.B. Miller founded a school of business, taught economics for years and helped rear four children.

Along the way, he laughed and joked and brought an easy manner, but a serious message, to those he met.

"He was a great big guy with a great big smile," said Amber Joy, his daughter. "We all have his mouth. It's not too big until you open it, then it's ear-to-ear, all teeth."

Mr. Miller died Nov. 20 following a stroke. He was 87.

After receiving a bachelor's degree from Greenville College in Illinois, Mr. Miller focused his career on teaching and leading Christian schools.

He served as president of Central College in McPherson, Kan., for nine years before moving to Seattle Pacific College in 1953. There, he taught economics and founded and chaired the college's School of Business. For many years, he coordinated the school's public relations.

But he became most legendary, some say, for his leading of the daily chapel program.

"He combined a rich sense of humor with a very profound sense of spirituality," said Dr. Curtis Martin, president emeritus of the school.

It was a combination Mr. Miller brought to every task, always taking the time for the most important school function, or the simplest student concern.

"He wasn't the wise-cracking, loud, boisterous humorist. He had more of a subtle and wry humor. Words and inflection," said V.O. "Bud" McDole, chairman of the Seattle Pacific University Board of

Trustees.

While still a college student, Mr. Miller met his future wife, Gladys Deardorff. Sixty-two years later, the couple were still going strong.

"It was one of those few marriages where they really thought the other one was the cat's meow the whole time," Joy said.

Together, the couple raised four children. Mr. Miller, who was "too busy for hobbies," earned a reputation for cooking up hearty Midwest meat-and-potatoes meals. The family's Sunday pot-roast dinners were a tradition.

Mr. Miller, an ordained elder of the Free Methodist Church, continued to share his strong Christian faith long after retirement from the school in 1972.

He once said that of all his experiences, he was most thankful for the opportunity to teach Sunday school, which he did for nearly three decades.

Besides his wife, Gladys, of Stanwood, and his daughter Amber Joy, Mr. Miller is survived by daughters Marilyn McDonald, of Lake Oswego, Ore., and Gwendolyn Marston, of Michigan; a son, Stan Miller, of Orcas Island; seven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.