Columbus residents, Jordan High grads remember flashy televangelist Jan Crouch

Before cotton candy wigs and tears that flowed on cue, she was Janice Wendell Bethany, the daughter of a beloved pastor at North Highland Assembly of God Church.

After picking up her diploma from Jordan High and marrying a college classmate, she became Jan Crouch — with a lavish lifestyle that paid for multi-story mansions, private jets and a $100,000 air-conditioned mobile home for her two Maltese puppies.

She grew up around her late father’s church in Bibb City, where no one dreamed she would ever be a co-founder of the largest Christian TV network in the world and CEO of the Holy Land Experience, an evangelical theme park that isn’t far from the home of Mickey Mouse.

Since 1973 she has been a flashy fixture on cable TV, shamelessly begging for money so that she and her husband, Paul, could build an empire of Christian stations all around the world. Jan Crouch died Tuesday, three years after the passing of her husband. She was 78.

Paul Voorhees, a member of the Rev. Edgar Bethany’s church and the owner of Ranger Joe’s, remembers sitting with Jan on the back row of the sanctuary sucking salty lemons.

“I remember her Daddy stopping his sermon and telling her, ‘Your Daddy can’t preach with you jumping around.’”

Their church did not believe women should wear makeup or outlandish clothes. Leave it to the preacher’s kid to test those boundaries.

“At times, she was a misfit and rebellious. She got way out with her hair even then,” said Voorhees, who was five years younger than Jan.

After her stroke and the confirmation of her death, friends from Jordan went on Facebook and remembered their school days. One classmate talked about Jan praying over a dead chicken and another, Caroline Satcher Moberley, wrote about her defying her father’s rules by wearing way too much makeup.

“I grew up with her. My grandmother of her Dad’s church … when we were teenagers, Jan would take her pocketbook full of makeup to school, put it on in the girl’s bathroom, then run to take it off before she went home so her folks wouldn’t see. I still chuckle when I think about that. She always had a flair for the dramatic.”

Voorhees, host of the “God and Country Radio Show,” said her father was a big influence on him. Later he was the founding president of Southeastern University in Florida. “Brother Bethany was ahead of his time. He was a true theologian and he never compromised with the Bible,” Voorhees said.

Her father’s stature in the Assemblies of God Church led to her meeting Paul Crouch, a student at Evangel College who was spending the summer with his sister in Rapid City, S.D. Bethany came for a camp meeting and Crouch wanted to hear him preach.

“There was the smell of sawdust in the air when I saw this angel in a bright red dress come down the center aisle,” Paul Crouch has written. “I didn’t hear much of what her father said. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. After the service I went to talk to her mother and she introduced her daughter. That’s when I found out Jan had a boyfriend back in Columbus, Ga.”

She enrolled at the same college as Crouch in the fall and they hooked up after Jan invited Crouch to a program on campus where she was singing.

“I can change my plans,” he said.

They married on Aug. 25, 1957.

Sixteen years later, Jan and Paul in partnership with Jim and Tammy Bakker founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network. It became a worldwide voice for the church that produced original programming, gospel music shows and offered a platform for Christian ministries.

Like Jim and Tammy Faye, they were a lightning rod for controversy, coming under fire for the way they spent the money they raised on television. Through the years, Jan’s custom wigs became even more flamboyant and viewers never knew what color her hair might be.

As one critic put it: “She loved Jesus and purple hair.”

Judy Spencer Nelon knew Jan when their fathers were pastors at neighboring churches in Columbus and their daughters were at Jordan. Nelon owns a music marketing firm in Nashville and she said TBN was always an advocate for Southern gospel music.

“Jan was loved and Jan was loving,” she said. “When she was on screen her enthusiasm was contagious.”

This story was originally published June 2, 2016 at 8:38 PM with the headline "Columbus residents, Jordan High grads remember flashy televangelist Jan Crouch."