Cindy Swanson

Bio

I was born December 10,1956,while my parents were students at Baptist Bible College in Springfield,Missouri. I was the second of four children; I have an older sister named Beverly, a younger sister named Lisa and a younger brother named David. I thank God for very loving Christian parents and a happy childhood.

My dad started out as a pastor, first of a small Baptist church in Arkansas, then in Hobbs, New Mexico. However, his belief that God was calling him to be a missionary in the early 60's had a profound influence on my life.

That decision resulted in my parents being approved as missionaries for the Baptist Bible Fellowship International mission board. In March of 1965, we sailed aboard a freighter ship called "The Flying Cloud" to Beirut, Lebanon.

Lebanon

The little over two years our family spent in Lebanon had far-reaching effects on my life.

The first year and a half of my schooling in Beirut was spent at a British school called Manor House School. This was totally different from anything I had become accustomed to in my short time in American schools. In the first place, the British education system was far ahead of ours. For example, my fellow third-graders had learned their multiplication tables in kindergarten...I didn't even know mine yet. This proved to be a serious problem for me, math-wise, as I struggled to play catch-up. Honestly, I never quite recovered, and have a mental block of sorts to this day when it comes to anything math-related.

On the other hand, my time at Manor House was a godsend when it came to literature. I was already an avid reader, and had finished Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women," "Little Men," and "Jo's Boys" on the ship on the way to Lebanon. The British school encouraged me to read things that might have been thought above an eight-year-old's head, and soon I was lapping up Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" and Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." (To this day, "Jane Eyre" is my favorite fiction book, and I still enjoy Jane Austen. Periodically I re-read those books and Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights," just because I enjoy them so much.)

This was also about the time I started writing like a fiend! For the equivalent of a few American pennies, you could buy tiny little tablets at Lebanese grocery stores. I would fill them with stories in the tiniest of print. That probably did two things for me: hastened my nearsightedness :), and insured that I write really well in print to this day! :)

The last year we were in Lebanon, we were able to transfer to American Community School. This was an excellent school, and I have some great memories of my time there, especially of my teacher, Mr. Frank Ford. He was Australian, and very cool, and I will admit I was kind of a teacher's pet. He also encouraged my love of reading and writing, and I was very sad when I had to say goodbye to him shortly before the end of the schoolyear.

That was because tensions between Israel and the Arab countries were escalating to the point that all Americans were evacuated out of Lebanon. We had the option to stay in a nearby country and wait it out, or go back to the States. Since my mom was nine months pregnant with my brother, my dad opted to return to the States. We ended up never going back to Lebanon.

Looking back, though, it's amazing what a large proportion of my childhood memories are concentrated there, given that we were there for so short a time. Before being ravaged by war, Lebanon was a beautiful country, with mountains tall enough to ski on, and a scenic coastline with lovely beaches. The downtown area had stores and skyscrapers and every modern convenience you could have wished for at the time.

Back to the States

Upon returning to the States, my father had pastorates in East Texas and Lousiana. I spent all four years of my high school in Shreveport, Louisiana. I also have many fond memories of my years in Lousiana, including occasional trips to New Orleans. I haven't been back there in many years, and would love to return.

Just as I was graduating from high school, my dad again felt the pull to the mission field. (My parents ended up ministering in Mexico for a few years while I was in Bible college.) I turned down a journalism scholarship offer to Lousiana Tech and headed for my parents' alma mater of Baptist Bible College in Springfield. I can speculate on how my life would have been different had I gone to Lousiana Tech instead. But I have to believe that God's providence was at work, because it was at BBC that I met my husband and got my first job in radio...two things that, of course, had major effects on my life.

College Years

Since I had been a national award-winning managing editor of my high school newspaper, one of the first things I did when I got to BBC was hop aboard their newspaper staff. At the time, the BBC Banner had a great editor named Mark Stamper, and I ended up being Feature Editor. I don't even know if BBC has a student newspaper now, but in the mid to late 70's it was a fairly thriving publication.

I was majoring in missions, but journalism and writing were still major loves for me. One day, Mark had Floyd Gilzow,news director for the Christian radio station owned by BBC, KWFC come speak to the newspaper staff. After Floyd spoke, I went up to him and asked him what I would need to do to get a job at the radio station. Honestly, I was thinking more in terms of being a DJ, but Floyd told me to come up to the station at the start of the following fall semester and he would see about hiring me.

He was true to his word. I was hired immediately in the fall of 1976, working part-time in the news department at KWFC. This would also be a turning point in my life. I was 19 years old.

I could have had no better journalism professor than Floyd Gilzow. He probably really wasn't a great deal older than I was, but he was an old-fashioned news director...the kind who would have crawled on his knees through broken glass to get a news story. What he taught me about broadcast news---news gathering,writing and broadcasting--was a priceless education. He was tough and demanding, but he was a great teacher. I am indebted to him to this day. I ended up working at KWFC for three years, including full-time while my husband was finishing up his degree in education.

Doug

When I first went to BBC, I dated quite a bit. My dad had always had a strict policy about only dating Christian guys, and since we had small churches with even smaller youth groups, that somewhat limited my dating as a teen. BBC seemed like a huge gathering of dating prospects for me! I dated a lot of very nice guys.

However, when I started dating Doug Swanson in November of 1977, it just seemed foreordained that we were supposed to be together. I had always admired him from a distance, and in the few months before we went out,we had become friends. But the first time we went out, there was an undeniable chemistry. I remember, the very first night we went out...at one point he said to me, "You know what,Cindy? You're everything I'm looking for in a girl."

We were pretty much inseparable after that first date. By April we were engaged, and we were married at Baptist Temple in Springfield in August of 1978.

I can only believe that,once again, God's providence was at work in my life in putting Doug and me together, and that decision contributed to shaping my life as has everything else that has happened to me.

Doug is a wonderful man, a terrific husband and father, and a real man of integrity who loves the Lord and endeavors to put Him first in everything. He has stood by me through some really difficult times...he is my husband,my friend and my lover!

Doug is the principal at Berean Christian School He is a sports fanatic,and is one of the fraternity of people who are blessed/cursed to be die-hard Chicago Cubs fans! (He also loves the Bears and the Bulls.) We will have been married 25 years on August 19th, 2003.

My children

It seems as if I spent much of the 80's either pregnant or having/raising babies! :)

My son Jonathan Douglas Swanson was born March 27, 1980. Jonathan graduated from Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio in June 2002 with a degree in accounting. He is currently employed at Dell Computers, and married the lovely Daylyn Warren of Boise, Idaho, in January 2004.

My second son,Justin Garrett Melvin Swanson, was born February 18, 1983. He is also an accounting major at Cedarville.

My daughter Elizabeth Ashley Swanson was born February 16, 1987. She is a student at Berean Christian School where my husband teaches.

My children are a tremendous source of joy to me! They all have great senses of humor and are wonderful writers and thinkers. Elizabeth is very musically talented; she plays the clarinet and takes piano and guitar lessons. I love being around them!

WQFL/WGSL

I love working in radio! I started working for WQFL Radio in Rockford, Illinois in March of 1981. With the exception of some time off after giving birth to Justin and later Elizabeth, I have been here ever since.

The news director who initially hired me was Wes Bleed, who is now a news editor and broadcaster at WGN Radio in Chicago, in my opinion one of the greatest radio stations in America! Wes and I still keep in touch occasionally, and he taught me a great deal about radio.

The next news director who had a great influence on me was Joel Griffith. Joel is now a staff writer for Slavic Gospel Association, and is a board member for a wonderful apologetics ministry called the Institute for Christian Apologetics/Mount Carmel Outreach.

After Joel left WQFL in the early 90's, I became news director and have stayed in that position ever since.

In 1988, WQFL's sister station, WGSL was created to provide more inspirational music and more teaching and preaching programs. I do the early morning news on both stations.

I love my job, and this radio station has provided a flexible and caring atmosphere in which to work while concentrating on my most important job: being a wife and mother.

Wow! I guess I got carried away

I really didn't intend to write a book for my bio, but I guess I got a little carried away! If you stuck it out through that tome, thanks for being interested enough to do so. I guess, looking back on my life now that I'm in my mid-40's, the thing that stands out is that God had a purpose for everything that happened, with every twist and turn so far working to shape me into what He wants me to be. That's a comforting thought as I face the coming years!