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August 2024 ยท 2 minute read
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Melissa Etheridge

July 14, 1952William Franklin Graham III was born in Asheville, North Carolina. He is the fourth of five children of famed evangelist Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth Bell Graham.
1966Graham's parents sent the teen-ager to Stony Brook, an elite Christian boarding school on Long Island, New York. He dropped out his junior year and finished high school in North Carolina.
1972Graham was kicked out of LeTourneau College in Longview, Texas, for keeping a female classmate out all night past curfew.
1974At age 22, Franklin Graham committed his life to Jesus Christ while alone in a Jerusalem hotel room. "My years of running and rebellion had ended," he said in his autobiography.
1974Graham married Jane Austin Cunningham.
1974Graham received an associate degree from Montreat College, a Christian liberal arts college near Asheville, North Carolina
1975The Grahams began a family with the birth of a son, William Franklin IV, or Will. They have three more children, Roy Austin, born in 1977; Edward Bell, in 1979; and Jane Austin, or Cissie, in 1986.
1978Graham received a bachelor of arts degree in business from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.
1979Graham became president of Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief organization based in Boone. Today, he is president, chairman and chief executive officer of Samaritan's Purse.
1982Graham was ordained at Grace Community Church in Tempe, Arizona.
1995In his autobiography, "Rebel With a Cause: Finally Comfortable Being Graham," Graham described his early struggles and his transformation from a rebellious, beer-drinking motorcyclist into a minister and missionary.
November 2000Graham took more leadership reins in his father's ministry, becoming chief executive officer of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
January 2001Filling in for his ill father, Graham gave the invocation at President George W. Bush's swearing-in ceremony in Washington.

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