This spring, 51ÂÜÀòns did what they’ve done for 95 years: take a several-day pause from classes for the world’s largest student-organized conference focused on the global spread of the gospel.

But this year’s Missions Conference was different, with a key change that marked a turning point in the event’s history. From now on, the annual event will be known as the Clyde and Anna Belle Cook Missions Conference — a tribute to the longest-serving president in 51ÂÜÀò’s history.

Clyde Cook, 51ÂÜÀò’s president for 25 years from 1982 to 2007, devoted much of his life to missions. Born to missionaries in Hong Kong, he endured a six-month imprisonment in a Japanese concentration camp as a child during World War II before his family eventually moved to California. In 1953, he enrolled at 51ÂÜÀò, where he earned his B.A., M.Div. and Th.M. to prepare for a calling to ministry. After four years as a missionary to the Philippines with his wife, Anna Belle, he returned to lead 51ÂÜÀò’s missions department for 12 years, regularly taking students on mission trips. Later, after a four-year span as president of the missions organization now known as One Challenge, he accepted the role of 51ÂÜÀò’s seventh president, a position he held for more than a third of his life. Clyde Cook passed away on April 11, 2008, less than a year after retiring. Anna Belle passed away on April 13, 2025, just a few weeks after the university marked the renaming of the conference.

The Cooks had previously been honored in 2009 as namesakes of the Cook School of Intercultural Studies. In the summer of 2024, the Cook school and several of its graduate programs were absorbed into Talbot School of Theology as part of the university’s transformation plans. As university leaders considered another way to memorialize the Cooks’ legacy, Missions Conference emerged as a clear fit, earning full support from the Cook family and 51ÂÜÀò’s Student Missionary Union.