President Prevo remembers Rep. Don Young: ‘The Dean of the House is now a Dean in Heaven’

Alaska Rep. Don Young was the longest serving member of the United States House of Representatives. On Friday, at 88 years old, Rep. Young went home to be with the Lord while on a flight back to his beloved Alaska. His wife Anne was by his side.

Rep. Young was an evangelical Christian who found his faith in the Anchorage Baptist Temple, the church led for 47 years by Liberty University President Jerry Prevo.

President Prevo issues the following statement honoring the life and legacy of his friend:

“The Dean of the House is now a Dean in Heaven. Without doubt, he was met by the words every Christian longs to hear: ‘Well done good and faithful servant.’ Virtually everyone in America at some point encountered Rep. Don Young over his 25 terms in the United States House of Representatives representing Alaska, but he represented so much more. He was a champion of America’s Judeo-Christian values. He was an advocate for commonsense policies which preserved American freedom and he kept the spirit of a fiercely free Alaska into the heart of a free America. He showed the world what one can accomplish when they dedicate their entire lives to public service. More importantly, Rep. Young was a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. I know because he told me he was. I officiated the memorial for his dear wife, Lula, in 2009 after 46 years of marriage. Rep. Young was a special person, and as my friend Franklin Graham is fond of saying, Rep. Young ‘will be missed but he can never be replaced.’ He was a dear friend, a brother-in-Christ, and an American Patriot. We pray for his wife Anne, and his entire family, and at Liberty University we take the loss of this giant as another opportunity to pray for God to use our institution to raise up a thousand more like him.”