Sidney A. Rand, a Lutheran elder statesman who served as president of St. Olaf College and as U.S. ambassador to Norway, died Dec. 16 in Northfield, Minn. He was 87.
A Lutheran minister, Rev. Rand was president of the college for 16 years before President Jimmy Carter sent him to Oslo as his ambassador in 1980; he retired from the post in 1981.
With former Vice President Walter Mondale, he founded the Nobel Peace Prize Forum conference, held annually by five colleges in the Midwest.
Rev. Rand also taught homiletics, the art of writing and delivering sermons, at Luther Seminary in St. Paul in the mid-1980s.
Sidney Anders Rand was born in Eldred, Minn. He graduated in 1938 from Concordia College, where he also received a doctor of divinity degree in 1956.
He was ordained at the Lutheran Seminary in St. Paul in 1943 and served as a pastor in northern Minnesota before he joined Concordia in 1945.
Rev. Rand was president of Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa, from 1951 to 1956, when he became executive director of college education for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.
During his presidency at St. Olaf, in Northfield, from 1963 to 1980, the college added six buildings and enrollment increased. He conducted two fundraising campaigns, bringing in about $25 million.
