Early life and education Banowsky was born in 1936 to a religious family. He was raised in
Fort Worth, Texas, where as a teenager he preached at
Church of Christ congregations. He attended
David Lipscomb College in
Nashville, Tennessee, where he studied history and speech on a baseball scholarship. He was the chairman of the Los Angeles County Committee to Reelect the President and also the California Republican National Committeeman. In 1975, Banowsky expected to be nominated by President Ford to the position of undersecretary of the
Department of the Interior, but the nomination fell through. He also served as a fundraiser for Ronald Reagan in the 1970s. During his tenure at Oklahoma, the university's endowment more than doubled, as did the size of the
Bizzell Memorial Library. In 1982, he resigned to become the first full-time president of the
Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Banowsky left the university again in 1984 to head
Gaylord Broadcasting, and in 1988 he was named executive vice president of
National Medical Enterprises.
Death and legacy Banowsky died April 28, 2019, at the age of 83. Banowsky Boulevard, a street on the Malibu campus of Pepperdine University, was named in honor of his service to the university. ==References==