Julius Tucker of ‘The Quiet Hour’

Julius Lafayette Tucker, a soft-spoken radio pastor and television minister whose persona reflected the message inherent in radio and television’s “The Quiet Hour,” died Tuesday in Loma Linda at age 92.

Tucker, a Seventh-day Adventist who began his radio ministry at station KEX in Portland, Ore., in 1935, left behind a broadcast ministry now heard in most of the Western world.

He retired in 1985, after 50 years, and his son, Laverne, continues as speaker and director of “The Quiet Hour.”

Born in Elk Point, S.D., Tucker became dean of boys at Mt. Ellis Adventist Academy in Bozeman, Mont., in 1916. It was there that he met his first wife, Ida Jane, who died in 1979.

After assignments in Colorado and Minnesota, Tucker moved his family to Portland, where he began the radio program. By 1945 “The Quiet Hour” had moved to Oakland, Calif.

Tucker’s son joined the program in 1949, the same year it began broadcasting on KGO-TV in San Francisco. The ministry moved to Berrien Springs, Mich., in 1954 where it was heard in four states. It moved to Redlands, Calif., in 1959.

From there it grew to international proportions and is now heard on radio throughout North America, Western Europe, Africa and Asia.

The program has spawned foreign and domestic missions, a Bible correspondence school, a videocassette service and a health information ministry, a spokesman said.

Besides his son, Tucker is survived by his second wife, Dorothy, a daughter, Jewell Sharp, three grandsons and five great-grandchildren.