His wife, Jan, points out that he was born a teacher. Boud agrees, but adds that he is not teaching music, he is teaching people. "Nothing is more important than my students and that they become disciples of the Lord Christ. Nothing is more important,” says Boud emphatically.

That commitment to the lives of students has been a characteristic of Boud’s career, according to Don Hustad, who was his professor in college, his colleague on a seminary faculty, and a fellow organist with the Graham Association.

“He’s extraordinary in his spiritual concern for young people,” Hustad observes. “He finds out their needs and tries to help them. He’s not just making music – he’s making people. He goes about it as a spiritual calling.”

Boud in his early days as an organist.

Touching Lives Through Music
A native of Atlantic City, NJ, Ron began studying piano at the age of eight. (He recalls that he wanted to study accordion, but his parents insisted he start with the piano.) He remembers that his parents paid five dollars an hour for a lesson, “and we thought we were paying for the moon to have lessons for five dollars an hour. It was very hard on my parents to come up with that money.”

At age 12, the gifted young pianist accompanied his paster on evangelistic crusades, an active schedule which continued through high school. Driving many miles by car with the evangelistic preacher became an early school of discipleship.

“It gave me lots of experience in terms of growing as a young musician – putting my talents and my gifts into ministry and committing them to the Lord,” Boud recalls. “I was challenged early on to commit it all to God and not keep any for myself.”

One of those trips took the pair to Chicago, where Ron visited Moody Bible Institute, and first met Hustad, then a professor at MBI. Hustad recalls that meeting, as the young man was brought to his office for an audition: “He played for me at the piano, and I was just astounded at his fluency.”

Boud was attracted to Moody in part because the school was then tuition free, and his pastor’s brother was on the faculty, teaching mission aviation. Those years at MBI were influential ones, where he began to recognize that music could become his career. 

Several elements contributed to the growing desire for a musical career, including his classroom work, continuing work as a music evangelist, and work performing live music for WMBI, the Institute’s well-known Christian radio station. So after three years at Moody, Boud enrolled at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, downtown on Michigan Avenue, overlooking the lake. 

"At that school you took only as many courses as you could afford. You didn't get locked into a curriculum. I was able to get scholarship help soon after I enrolled and I finished my bachelors degree in two years. That was normal. Every Moody grad typically had to go another two years to get a bachelors degree."

Boud and his wife Jan enjoy traveling as a hobby and have visited several different countries, including England, Switzerland and Germany.

Boud stayed at American and earned a master's degree. At the same time he also joined the faculty at Moody for those two years. Then he received an offer to teach at the Philadelphia College of Bible. Even as he embarked on that adventure in downtown Philadelphia, he retained a major interest in Chicago: his future wife, Jan.

Ron and Jan first met on her sixteenth birthday. He was then a college student of 19, and looking for an organist for the Sandy Cove Bible Conference in Maryland, where he was serving as music director.

"We hired waitresses and bus boys and grounds crew who could also sing and play trumpets," he relates. "It was a major responsibility for a 19 year old. I had to hire staff while I was trying to go to school. I needed to hire an organist and didn't know where to turn. Dick Robinson was having meetings in Jan's church in suburban Chicago. Jan was functioning as a church organist at that time and played for Dick's meetings in that church. Dick called me on the phone and said, ‘If you are looking for an organist for the summer there is a girl here at age 16 who plays very well.’ I went out and met her on her sixteenth birthday in her home, met her parents, we had dinner and I hired her. Of course, I didn't date her at the time. It would have been unwise because I was her boss, and it would have been unwise because her parents would have never let me get near her!" 

After Jan worked with Ron for two summers – and finished high school – they started dating. He was a student at the American Conservatory and she enrolled at Moody. When the teaching job came in Philadelphia, they began a long distance courtship that lasted for two years. They were married in 1969, and Ron took a break from teaching to study for his doctoral degree in music at Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, which was awarded in 1971. Then he was re-hired to the Philadelphia College faculty.

During those five years in Philadelphia, Boud did post-doctoral study in piano at the Juilliard School in New York. He commuted one day a week, riding the train to New York to study with renowned teacher Adele Marcus. Then in 1976, Boud was invited to return to Louisville to join the faculty at Southern Seminary. 

"I loved Southern Seminary," he recalls, explaining the decision to embark on a new area of ministry. "Both Jan and I had very happy memories of Louisville. When the call came, it was something that I had to do. One is always wisest to surround yourself with people who are better than you and wiser than you, from whom you can learn. You should always choose to be the $50,000 house on the block full of $100,000 dollar homes. You can only take on value. So I was a $50,000 house surrounded by men who were older and wiser and more experienced than I. For me it was always growing; it never stopped being that."

Boud with mentor and friend, Don Hustad.

In Louisville, Boud was also reunited with his former instructor, Don Hustad. In the intervening years they had maintained a connection through an activity common to both of them: accompanist for the Billy Graham Association.

"I started with Leighton Ford part-time in 1966 and was with him 22 years, until he left the Graham Association and stopped doing major city-wide crusades. That was a wonderful experience. I was always a full-time teacher but wherever I was teaching I always had the prerogative of being away two weeks a semester playing major city-wide crusades. It always impacted what I thought ministry is and should be and how it should be done. It made me always be moved to see someone commit their life to Christ – that has never changed. Those things were very formative for me," Boud explains.

Shifting Musical Identities
Though he had been recruited to the Southern Seminary faculty as a pianist, after a few years he began the shift to organ. The change began during his first sabbatical leave, which was spent at Northwestern University.

“While I was there, I was singing in the choir at the First Presbyterian Church at Evanston,” Ron remembers, watching the organist as he played during each service. “I had never heard the organ played quite so creatively in a service. I said to myself, “I am a creative person. I could do that.” Shortly after that, Boud started studying organ in Louisville along with teaching service playing and some limited organ teaching. 

Gradually Boud’s musical identity shifted from piano to organ. By the time he took early retirement from Southern Seminary in 1995, Boud was seen almost exclusively as an organist. Working for a year as a consultant with the Allen Organ Company, it was all the time he needed to realize his place was in the classroom. And that led to an opportunity to move to Union University.

Ron has “really loved” his new setting at Union. As he notes, “It is fun to be a part of a growing thing.”

For Boud, a symbol of that growth has been watching from his new office window as the Miller Tower was being constructed.

“I was excited when we got our new music building,” he acknowledges. “But to watch that tower take shape made such a statement to me that this is a focal point, an identifying factor of a new Union. I remember being really moved emotionally the day when the cupola went on top of that tower.” 

The growth in student quality, to Boud, is the most exciting change he has observed in his five years at Union. During that period, he believes Union has begun attracting a different kind of student, representing stronger preparation as well as a broader perspective. Students that are auditioning for spots at Union are also being considered by major universities. “Our competition is no longer small Baptist colleges.”

In addition to teaching, one of Boud’s great loves is composition. He now has more than 60 published works to his credit, including works for organ, piano, and voice.

It’s a creative outlet that began when he was a student at Moody, arranging music for an ensemble to sing on WMBI.

"I did everything wrong!" he now laughs. "But I took that piece of music to the ensemble to sing and I realized how poorly I had done. That provided me with a lot of fodder for teaching. I mean, I can verbalize concepts that aren't even in the text books because I know what does not work!" 

As a young teacher, Boud began writing seriously and had his first book in print in the late 60's. Hustad believes that his former student is such an effective composer because he is so creative: "He’s always got a tune running through his head. He just improvises music in his brain constantly."

Is there a sense of satisfaction when you hear someone performing something that you have written? Absolutely, says Boud.

"I am overwhelmed with humility when somebody does something that I have written," he affirms. "I mean, I literally keep my head down not thinking that I deserve to be heard or performed."

Though Ron Boud has multiple identities — as teacher, composer, and performer — the one he holds in highest priority is his role as a minister to and shaper of young people.

“I don't care how they finger a Bach fugue if they have not been taught to be a disciple of Christ,” he stresses. “You know, the social theorists tell us that this generation of students are going to have four careers. Not four jobs, but four careers. With that in mind, the best thing that I can give to my students is faith and values. We teach a lot of writing and we do a lot of grades, but all that is done at the foot of the cross. Nothing else matters. In the greater scheme of life, if the talent is not fully developed and not fully laid at Christ's feet for His use, it is meaningless.”