History of King's

The King’s College was founded in 1938 in Belmar, New Jersey by Dr. Percy B. Crawford. In 1949, Crawford initiated Youth on the March, the first nationwide television show of any kind. (A 1.5 minute segment of archival footage from the program is available here.) CNN later honored Crawford on the 50th anniversary of the first Youth on the March broadcast.

In 1955, Crawford moved King's to Briarcliff Manor, New York. When Dr. Crawford died of a heart attack in 1960, Dr. Robert Cook became the college’s second president.

In 1985, Dr. Friedhelm Radandt, a former professor at the University of Chicago and President of Northwestern College in Iowa, became the college’s third president. King's ran into financial difficulties in the early 1990s and closed in 1994. In 1998, J. Stanley Oakes, in coordination with Dr. Bill Bright, led the effort to re-capitalize the school. Radandt continued as president.

In 1999, The King’s College acquired Northeastern Bible College, of Essex Fells, New Jersey. That year the revived King's leased 34,000 square feet on two floors of Empire State Building, where it remains today.

On January 1, 2003, the Board of Trustees of The King’s College selected J. Stanley Oakes, Jr. to be the college’s fourth president. President Oakes, a graduate in Classical Greek from the University of Minnesota and in political theory from the University of Dallas, had spent nearly 20 years building a nationwide network of Christian professors.

(Pictures and a fuller narrative of The King’s College earliest days can be found at: http://infoage.org/html/kings.html)