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| Now I remember. |
Pat Boone remembers he's on Ecclesia board: "Home / News / Arkansas
82-year-old singer says memory jogged
By Bill Bowden
This article was published today at 4:01 a.m. Updated today at 4:01 a.m.
Oren Paris, president of Ecclesia College, is shown in this Thursday, April 11, 2013 file photo.
Pat Boone has had a revelation.
The 82-year-old singer, who last week denied ever having heard of Springdale's Ecclesia College, said his memory has been jogged.
Boone said he apparently agreed in 2012 to serve on the Christian college's board of regents, but he had forgotten all about it.
"I've had to go back and review correspondence and consult memories of others than myself about my being on the board at Ecclesia College," Boone wrote in an email Wednesday to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Oren Paris III, president of Ecclesia College. "My memory was vague but clearer now."
On March 1, Paris was charged in federal court with nine counts of honest-services wire fraud and one count of honest-services mail fraud in a kickback case involving state legislators and hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funds. The scheme involved bribing the legislators and thus denying "honest services" by the elected officials, according to the indictment.
Attempts were made last week to reach members of the board of regents regarding the indictment of Paris, so a call was placed to Pat Boone Enterprises in West Hollywood, Calif.
Through his assistant, Boone said on March 7 that he had never heard of Ecclesia College and didn't serve on its board of regents.
Boone apparently heard from someone at Ecclesia College after an article was published in the Democrat-Gazette on March 9.
Boone began his email Wednesday with, "To whom it may concern: (and obviously it concerns many)."
Boone wrote that Paris "evidently" contacted him in 2012 about serving on the board. Boone said he had known Paris for a couple of years.
Boone wrote that he also was contacted by George Hiller, a "highly respected investor manager and analyst in Atlanta and devoted Christian," about being on the Ecclesia board. Hiller didn't return a phone call Thursday.
"As I remember, I proposed I'd be on a board of advisers, but was told that the board of regents as expressed by Ecclesia was more of a 'board of reference,' and an endorsement of the goals and objectives of the school," Boone wrote in the email.
"So, on that basis, I accepted, and since then have had little, if any, contact with Oren or the school. I meant my name to be used as an endorsement of the goals and aspirations as they had been expressed to me, and because of those expressing those goals and my confidence in them, felt I could lend my name to the enterprise."
Regarding the charges facing Paris, Boone wrote, "Since I know nothing of what has happened since then, I can only hope and pray that the problems that Ecclesia faces momentarily can be settled by complete transparency, explanation and records. We need more Christian education not less in America.""
'via Blog this'
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| Oren Paris III is standing where an addition was built, one large room - not "a classroom building." |
GJ - Pat Boone is one of three who said they did not know they were on this Board of Regents, as they call it. The other two said they knew about the college but did not know they were on this board.
This so-called board is just window dressing and does not meet. Three years ago, one faculty member said, "If Pat Boone is on this board, why have we never seen him?"
Oren Paris III was not seen very often and did not engage in much work at the college, but he spoke as if he were over-worked.