Wheaton College (Illinois) alumni

Rolland Hein (September 12, 1932 – March 10, 2023) was an American academic of English literature. He was professor emeritus of English at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

Elisabeth Elliot (née Howard; December 21, 1926 – June 15, 2015) was a Christian missionary, author, and speaker. Her first husband, Jim Elliot, was killed in 1956 while attempting to make missionary contact with the Auca people (now known as Huaorani; also rendered as Waorani or Waodani) of eastern Ecuador. She later spent two years as a missionary to the tribe members who killed her husband. Returning to the United States after many years in South America, she became widely known as the author of over twenty books and as a speaker. Elliot toured the country, sharing her knowledge and experience, well into her seventies.

Craig L. Berkman (born August 12, 1941) is an American venture capitalist and a Republican politician in the U.S. state of Oregon. He was known as a major donor in national Republican circles. He chaired the Oregon Republican Party in the early 1990s, opposing the far right Oregon Citizens Alliance. He ran for chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1993 and for Governor of Oregon in 1996, losing the former race to Haley Barbour and the latter to Denny Smith in the primary election.Berkman served as Oregon's state Republican Party chairman from 1989 to 1993 and ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for Governor of Oregon in 1994.He was arrested in March 2013 in the Tampa, Florida suburb of Odessa, where he has a $3.94 million home, on charges of selling pre-IPO shares of Facebook.In June 2013, Berkman pleaded guilty to securities and wire fraud at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. On December 16, 2013, he was sentenced to 6 years in prison, and will be required to repay $8.4 million to investors.

Ruth McCue Bell Graham (June 10, 1920 – June 14, 2007) was a Chinese-born American Christian author, most well known as the wife of evangelist Billy Graham. She was born in Qingjiang, Jiangsu, Republic of China, the second of five children. Her parents, Virginia Leftwich Bell and L. Nelson Bell, were medical missionaries at the Presbyterian Hospital 300 miles (480 km) north of Shanghai. At age 13 she was enrolled in Pyeng Yang Foreign School in Pyongyang, Korea, where she studied for three years. She completed her high school education at Montreat, North Carolina, while her parents were there on furlough. She graduated from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.
The Grahams met at Wheaton College and were married in the summer of 1943, shortly after their graduation. Ruth Graham became a minister's wife for a brief period in Western Springs, Illinois. She lived out the rest of her life in Montreat, North Carolina. The Grahams have five children: Virginia (Gigi), Anne, Ruth, Franklin, and Nelson Edman (Ned), 19 grandchildren, and numerous great-grandchildren.
Graham wrote a number of books, including some co-authored with her daughter Gigi Graham.

Alvera Mickelsen (1919 – July 12, 2016) was an American academic, author, and women's equality activist. Mickelsen, an evangelical Christian, spent her professional life advocating "that being a feminist is a Christian responsibility," despite resistance from some sectors. She published numerous books and scholarly articles on the topic of women's equality within Christianity. Alvera Mickelsen joined her colleagues to co-found Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE) in the late 1980s, a non-profit organization of churches and individuals which advocates for the equality of women within the church, as well as in their homes and society. Additionally, Mickelsen was a longtime professor of journalism at Bethel University in Minnesota from 1968 to 1986.Mickelsen, who was born in 1919 as one of 5 children of Swedish immigrant parents, was raised in a small farmhouse just outside La Porte, Indiana. The family moved to nearby Michigan City, Indiana, when she was nine years old. However, the Great Depression soon left her parents destitute just one year after they relocated to Michigan City. Mickelsen still graduated from high school in 1936 and became the first member of her family to enroll in college. She transferred between several colleges and universities due to scholarships, before graduating from Wheaton College in Illinois in 1942.Following her graduation from Wheaton College, she received her master's degree in journalism from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She then became an editor for several Christian magazines and publications based in Chicago, before returning to Wheaton College as a professor. She met her husband, A. Berkeley Mickelsen, while teaching at Wheaton. The couple married in 1952 and had two daughters. Alvera Mickelsen continued to teach at Wheaton while simultaneously completing her second master's degree, this time in education, also from Wheaton.In 1965, the family moved to Arden Hills, Minnesota, where Berkeley Mickelsen had been hired as a professor of Greek, Hebrew and theology at Bethel Seminary. Alvera Mickelsen also became a professor of journalism at Bethel College (now called Bethel University) in 1968, where she taught until 1986.During the 1970s, Mickelsen and her husband, who were progressive evangelicals, became concerned by the perception of a backlash against women's rights and equality within the evangelical community. Together, Alvera and A. Berkeley Mickelsen published two books which cited Biblical passages that supported the equality of the sexes. They began touring Minnesota to debate leading pastors and theologians on the topic of gender equality within Christianity. The Mickelsens later helped to establish the non-profit group, Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE), during the 1980s. Alvera Mickelsen also served as the first chair of CBE's board of directors.After the unexpected death of A. Berkeley Mickelsen, aged 69, in 1990, Alvera Mickelsen continued to tour worldwide to promote gender equality and feminism within evangelicalism. According to Mimi Haddad, the current President of Christians for Biblical Equality, Mickelsen was once asked by a Christian radio show host how she could be both a traditional evangelical Christian and a feminist simultaneously. Mickelsen replied that the host should look up feminism in a dictionary, where the word was defined as "a belief that women should have social, political, and economic equality with men." The host replied that " 'Well, I believe in all those things', to which Mickelsen responded, 'Well, then, you are a feminist!' "Alvera Mickelsen died from natural causes on July 12, 2016, at the age of 97. She was survived by her two daughters, Ruth and Lynnell Mickelsen; her brother, Mel Johnson; and four grandchildren.

Robert Howard Ralston (born July 2, 1938, in Upland, California) is an American pianist and organist who performed on television's The Lawrence Welk Show from 1963 until 1982, when the series ended.