WVNCC Friends/Foundation Dinner To Honor Cummings

Dr. Darrell W. Cummings, community leader and pastor of the Bethlehem Apostolic Temple in Wheeling and Shiloh Apostolic Faith Assembly in Weirton, will be cited for his years of volunteer service by West Virginia Northern Community College during its annual fund-raising dinner.

Cummings, current chairman of the WVNCC Board of Governors, will be honored at the event, sponsored by the Wheeling campus Friends of the College and the West Virginia Northern Community College Foundation, to be held Saturday, March 14, at the Education Center building at 17th and Eoff streets downtown.

Friends of the College committee members have been planning the dinner for several months, and have chosen as its theme “An Evening at the Rodeo.” It is expected those in attendance will be served a gourmet dinner with a Tex-Mex flair, prepared by the college’s Culinary Arts chefs and students, and will be surrounded by a Western motif. Live entertainment and silent and live auctions also will be featured.

“Darrell Cummings is one of the longest-serving members of Northern’s Board of Governors. His love for the college is well known, and his voluntarism in the wider community is legendary,” Nick Zervos, president of the Friends board, said. Robert J. Krall, president of the Foundation Board of Trustees, added, “As a volunteer leader in our community, Darrell has few peers. He is positive, passionate, wise and highly deserving of the honor. All of us who know him, and all those he has helped through his ministry and efforts, will applaud his recognition.”

Cummings was born in San Antonio, Texas. He is a graduate of Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland State College, Internal Auditor Federal Reserve School, Moody Bible School and the Ashtabula, Ohio, Bible School, where he received his doctorate in theology. He also has received degrees in accounting, business law and real estate law.

Licensed as a minister at the age of 16, he had his first pastorate at the age of 19. Cummings founded Greater Love Pentecostal Church in Ashtabula in 1980 and remained there for more than a decade. He received laying on of hands at his ordination in Zanesville, Ohio, by the late Bishop Morris E. Golder of Indianapolis. On June 15, 1992, Cummings became the pastor of Bethlehem Apostolic Temple, being installed by the late Bishop F.L. Smith of Akron, Ohio. In April of 2002 he was elevated to District Elder in the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Ohio District Council, District 8.

Cummings has served as a leader and officer in the religious community for more than two decades. He is the former vice president of the Wheeling Clergy Council, the former chairman of the evangelism committee for the Greater Wheeling Council of Churches, the former chairman for the Martin Luther King Community Celebration for the Ohio Valley and presently serves as president of the Ohio Valley Pastor’s Association. In 1997 he was awarded one of the “Man of the Year” awards by the Wheeling NAACP. In February 2003 he received an award as the “Civil Rights Leader of the Year” by the West Virginia Education Association. He also was given the honor of serving as chaplain for the West Virginia Legislature, in both the Senate and the House.

He is on several boards including the Wheeling Area Habitat for Humanity, Wheeling Police Commission, Youth Services Board where he served as chairman and currently is president of the Rotary Club of Wheeling.

In August of 2006, Cummings was appointed chairman of Human Rights Division by the governor of West Virginia. In 2009 he was awarded the “Man of the Year” award at the African American Heritage of the Ohio Valley program. He is a recipient of the “St. Francis Xavier Award” from the student government of Wheeling Jesuit University.

Cummings is the speaker for the “Voice in the Wilderness” radio and television broadcast. He writes weekly and monthly guest editorials for several major newspapers in the Ohio Valley. He serves in the chaplain’s department for two state prisons, one nursing home and two hospitals.

He has three children: Melanie Faith, Claude Vaughn and Richard William Cummings.

1/16/15