The Wabash High School Adelaide Baylor Library is pleased to announce the addition of “From Fission to Fishin”, written by Dr. Arthur W. Deyo, into its circulation. Arthur (Art) Deyo, son of Methodist pastor, Wallace Deyo, graduated from Wabash High School in 1958. He had a great experience at Wabash and was academically very proficient, graduating Valedictorian in his class of 105. His main extracurricular activities centered around his music ability on the trombone. He was first chair in the Marching and Concert Bands and played in the Jazz Band at most of the football and basketball games. He was also a leader in his church youth group and active in the local Boy Scout troop, receiving his Eagle Scout Award when he was 16. For this achievement he was honored as Wabash’s “Mayor for a Day,” got his picture taken at the mayor’s desk with the photo being published in the Wabash Plain Dealer.
Art received a scholarship to attend Taylor University in Upland, IN, and enjoyed his four years there as a math and physics major with a minor in chemistry. While in college he was a member of the Trombone Trio which traveled for three years playing Gospel Music and speaking in churches. After his sophomore year at Taylor he went with the trio on a month-long mission trip to England with Youth For Christ. Graduating Salutatorian from Taylor in 1962 he was awarded a fellowship by the Atomic Energy Commission to attend the University of Illinois to study Nuclear Engineering. It was at this point in his life that he married a Cincinnati girl, Lois Staub, whom he had met and dated at Taylor.
Art received his Masters in Atomic Energy in 1963 and began working on this PhD. At the same time he was volunteering for the local Youth For Christ ministry in Champaign-Urbana. It was at this time that the Board of Directors of YFC asked him to consider becoming their full-time Executive Director. After three months, he and Lois decided Art should leave engineering and take the position offered in Youth For Christ. Why a person would leave such a potentially lucrative field to take a position that paid very little is the whole reason for Art’s new book, “From Fission to Fishin, My Lifelong Mission in Youth For Christ.” His faith had led him to stop working with Nuclear Reactors and start fishing for “Teenage Reactors.”
The book, which is available on Amazon and Kindle, goes on to tell Art’s 56 years (so far) in Youth For Christ and the thousands of young people whose lives he has impacted. During this time he has recruited and sent 200+ missionaries to serve overseas and began many Youth For Christ chapters in the Midwest as well as in Central Asia. Over the course of his travels, he has visited 81 countries and is now on the Legacy Staff of YFC as their historian.
Art and Lois have a daughter, Deanna, and a son, Jeff, both of whom have been in ministry all their lives. They are blessed with six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.