Frederick K.C. Price*

Frederick K. C. Price was born in 1932 in Santa Monica, California. An only child until he was a teenager, Price spent much of his youth on his own. His father, a janitor and chauffeur, was an alcoholic, which hurt his family financially as well as emotionally. Price's mother was forced to leave her son alone at night for hours while she worked as a nurse in a children's hospital. His youth was a lonely existence in which he had to teach himself how to deal with the stress and insecurity that were a part of his everyday life.

As soon as he was able, Price began to work. He had a paper route and took whatever other odd jobs he could find. When he graduated from high school, he paid for his own cap and gown. He went on to receive an associate degree from Los Angeles City College. At the age of 20, Price attended a revival meeting with his girlfriend, Betty, whom he later married. Price became a born-again Christian and felt a calling to minister, but he spent 17 years looking for a church he could call his own.

In 1962, Price's faith was tested in a way every parent dreads. His eight-year-old son, Frederick, was hit and killed by a car while going home from school. Betty Price later wrote a book, Standing by God's Man, to illustrate that difficult time in their lives.

Price became a full-time pastor in 1969 at the Christian and Missionary Alliance of the West Washington Community Church, which he had joined four years earlier. In 1973, he moved his 300 parishioners to the nondenominational Crenshaw Christian Center in Inglewood, California.

In 1978, Price began a televised ministry titled Ever Increasing Faith. He has also published more than 50 books, including How Faith Works, How to Obtain Strong Faith, and Marriage and the Family.

In 1984, Price moved his ministry once again to the former Pepperdine University campus in Los Angeles. Two years later, the Crenshaw Center began building Faith Dome. In 2001, Price opened Crenshaw Center East in New York.

Looking back over his long ministry, Price said, "To be able to touch people's lives in positive ways, and to actually see positive changes in people over time, is the greatest reward there is." Honored and excited by his Horatio Alger Award, Price said one should not dwell on the bad things that have happened in life. "Instead," he counseled, "put faith to work in your everyday life, and that will make everything else what it ought to be."