— UPDATED —
Dwayne Good, 85, who performed in the gospel duet The Good Twins with his identical twin brother, Dwight, for more than 55 years, died on April 10, 2022. The Facebook page for The Good Twins shared news of Dwayne’s passing that day, and now an extensive obituary is available from Mason-Woodard Mortuary & Crematory, Joplin, Mo.
A celebration service for Dwayne Good is set for April 22 at College Heights Christian Church in Joplin, Mo. Visitation will start at 10:30 a.m. with the service following at 11:30 a.m.
(A tribute video was shown at the funeral service, complete with musical accompaniment by The Good Twins. Click here to access — the password is “good”.)
Dwayne and Dwight started singing together at age 3. After graduating from Lincoln (Ill.) Bible Institute (now Lincoln Christian University) in 1958, they traveled throughout the Midwest performing at concerts and revivals. According to Dwayne’s obituary, “The Good Twins were innovative and were the first to use pre-recorded background music instead of live accompaniment at their performances.”
In the 1960s and ’70s, the duo began traveling throughout the entire country and overseas. Eventually, they moved to California where they recorded albums at Capital Records. In 1972, Dwayne relocated to Joplin, Mo., with his growing family, but The Good Twins continued singing around the world.
Dwayne Good was preceded in death by his wife, Ferol—whom he met at a revival in Memphis, Mo., where the brothers were performing—and by three siblings. In addition to his longtime singing partner, Dwight, he is survived by one sister, Thelma Mize; three sons, Troy, Todd, and Terry; one daughter, Traci Heinrich; and 10 grandchildren.
The brothers got together as recently as last summer for their birthday, as pictured on their Facebook page. Dwayne Good had Alzheimer’s disease.
Memorials may be made to the Show-Me Christian Youth Home. (Dwayne had served on that ministry’s board.)
Brad Dupray interviewed the Good Twins in 2008 for this Christian Standard feature.
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CHRISTIAN STANDARD Interview: The Good Twins
Interview by Brad Dupray
May 11, 2008; p. 12
Dwayne and Dwight Good have been ministering through music to churches around the world as The Good Twins since graduating from Lincoln (Illinois) Christian College in 1958. They have provided music for revivals, rallies at mission stations, church services, Christian conventions, and other Christian gatherings—more than 7,000 concerts in the United States and 22 foreign countries. Today, as they celebrate 50 years of ministry, The Good Twins are busy performing concerts to benefit various missions, with 100 percent of the proceeds going directly to those missions. Their ministry has raised more than $110,000 for missions in the past 18 months.
Was it your plan from the beginning to become The Good Twins?
Dwayne: Dwight and I were members of a quartet called The Lordsmen, together with Chuck Magnuson and Red Florence, while in college. We all decided to go into full-time work holding revival meetings and we were going to start in California. So we booked four revival meetings, each two weeks long. After our first revival meeting, the next two churches canceled out. That left us a month without any income, so we disbanded the quartet.
Dwight: At first we decided to go back to our home in Illinois, but then Lertis Ellett came and asked if we would hold a revival at his church (Lawndale Christian Church) a month later. So we stayed in California the next four weeks and then held that revival meeting for them. He asked us what we would charge, and we said $125 each per week. He didn’t think the church board would agree, so he asked us if we would come for a freewill offering. We said, “Yes,” and decided to make it a test of whether or not God was calling us into this ministry. If God would meet our needs and bless the revival with additions and encouragement, we would do it. At the end of the revival the offerings were over $900 and they had more baptisms than ever before.
Dwayne: And that was without services on Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday nights—those were calling nights.
Dwight: And during that time we booked four more revival meetings in California for January and February. We thought the Lord wanted us to go out to California during the wintertime. [laughs]
Dwayne: We heard the Lord loud and clear! [more laughter]
Has there been a particular highlight in your ministry?
Dwight: We recorded an album with Ralph Carmichael’s orchestra in 1968 at Capitol Records in Hollywood. The album was titled Church Is Finally Over. It has been our best-selling album throughout the years. It won the NEFF Award as the Gospel Duet Album of the Year in 1968. Billboard Magazine gave it four stars. [The NEFF Award was a forerunner to the Gospel Music Association Dove Awards.]
Another highlight is when we were invited to sing in the Promise Keepers choir, Stand in the Gap, in Washington, D.C. Over 1 million were in attendance. Eighty voices were chosen for the choir and we were two of them.
How did you make that connection?
Dwight: The man in charge of all the Promise Keepers choirs was Stan Endicott. Stan was a graduate of Lincoln Christian College, and we heard Stan at a church in Clinton, Illinois. We hired him for a year to help us with our singing, music, and recordings. During that year he orchestrated two albums for us, and we also sent him to college to learn how to arrange for orchestration. We introduced him to John W. Peterson, who hired him to do background music for his company. We really believed in Stan. I later recommended him to Knott Avenue Christian Church in California where he was the worship leader for 25 years.
So how does a pair of singing twins make an impact on world missions?
Dwight: Our mission is to help missions—parachurches. “Para” means alongside, so a parachurch would be an organization that works hand in hand with the local church, but it is not a church. An example I give is Deaf Missions. It’s an extension of the local church. We put on benefit concerts, and 100 percent of those offerings go to those parachurches. We pay all of our own expenses out of our own ministry.
Dwayne: Another example would be Show-Me Christian Youth Home in LaMonte, Missouri. They have more than 100 children in seven different cities. Their budget is over $1 million per year. In 2003, Dwight and I did a world-record tour, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. We performed 106 concerts in 106 days in 106 cities, and 100 percent of the offerings were sent to Show-Me. They told me we raised $69,925.25. Since then we have raised an additional $35,500 for a total of $105,416.25.
How are you able to give away 100 percent of the offerings? You do have to make a living.
Dwight: Missionaries raise funds in order to go to the mission field. Churches in America pledge to support them so they can start their ministry without looking for a job to support themselves. Likewise, we have churches and individuals who sponsor us on a monthly basis. We have the KGB Club—the Kingdom of God Builders (KGB is from our mission to Russia). The people in our club sponsor us on a monthly basis for 12 months. Our expenses and salaries come from these people and churches. That’s how we can give 100 percent to parachurches. All the offering from our concerts is sent to the parachurch by the host church so we don’t even see it.
How did you get started doing benefit concerts?
Dwayne: We performed benefit concerts for Cecil Todd for 10 years, purchasing Bibles for the Russian military.
Dwight: During that same time we were also working with Child Life International.
How have these concerts affected your ministry?
Dwayne: They have brought us closer to the Lord, and our faith has become stronger. Believe it or not, it’s a whole lot easier to serve the Lord when we have to rely on him and his people, instead of ourselves.
And you’re raising money for this summer’s North American Christian Convention.
Dwayne: We’re hoping to raise $25,000 to $50,000 for the North American Christian Convention this year. . . .
Is there something about the NACC that is especially meaningful to you?
Dwayne: If it weren’t for the North American Christian Convention we probably wouldn’t be in this work. When we were in Lawndale without a job for a month it just so happened that the North American Christian Convention was being held in Portland, Oregon. Lertis Ellett said we ought to go up there and let people know of our desire to begin this evangelistic work. We didn’t have a car, but we had enough money to take a train. We happened to have an uncle who lived in Portland, and he let us stay at his home. He would take us to the convention every day and come and get us at night. We made some mimeographed copies and started handing them out to preachers. We scheduled six weeks of revival meetings at that convention.
One of those revival meetings was in a little town called Memphis, Missouri. When we started that revival meeting I walked out on the platform and saw a very pretty girl named Ferol. I looked at her and said to Dwight, “I think I’ve seen my wife for the first time, today.” Three years later we were married, and now we’ve been married for 46 years.
I understand you have other benefit concerts you’re doing this summer.
Dwight: We have several benefits for this summer and the NACC is one. Rapha House is a ministry in Cambodia that provides a safe home for 67 girls who are 4 to 15 years old who had been sold into sex slavery. Daughters of Ruth, a ministry in Thailand, has a two-story dormitory housing 24 girls from 5 to 16 years old. These girls have suffered from abuse, embarrassment, fear, and shame. Their parents are in prison.
Dwayne: In Joplin, the local Life Choices organization will be another one. Cecil Todd has asked us to help him get Bibles to our soldiers in Iraq. . . .
And you mentioned your work in Russia, too.
Dwight: I have been to Russia 29 times. I started working with an organization called Child Life International out of Davenport, Iowa, in 1992. I was vice president, and we had a ministry of bringing sick children and their mothers from Russia to America for life-saving heart operations. We thought it was important to have their mothers by their side for strength and healing. Three boys were operated on at St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois, and three girls were operated on at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis. We paid all expenses from the time they left home to the time they returned. This included airfare, housing, medications, and living expenses.
Dwayne: Two of the girl’s operations were not free. So we had to raise additional funds for their operations.
Dwight: Those additional funds amounted to $50,000. It took 76 benefit concerts to raise the money.
What’s next for the Good Twins?
Dwight: We’re still continuing this ministry. This will not be our last year. We’ll just trim our schedule down to a slower pace. . . .
I lived in Southern CA. As a young man in the mid 60s when i met the Good Twins. About age 9. I am a singer myself and they inspired me at a young age.
As a kid in the 1970s, growing up at Westshore Christian Church in Tampa, I was fascinated by the Good Twins. They visited several times over the years, & there I’d be in the front row. What a ministry!
I was a member of the board at Lawndale when Lertis came to us and presented us with the idea of them conducting the meetings. $125.00, was a lot of money at that time, so there was some hesitation. It was a great time of revival that the area needed and very successful. My parents housed the twins during the meetings and we became great friends. We loved their music.
I was a young mother when they first came to Lawndale. My Daddy was Lertis Ellett. I remember vividly their first revival as the Good Twins. I have many CD’s and listen to them regularly in my car.
When I was 19 I first met the Good Twins when they sang at our church in LaCrosse, Wis. I followed them all my life and used their song “Church Is Finally Over” at the close of my sermon. It moved a young girl to come forward and accept Jesus. Looking forward to seeing them again when I go to meet Jesus.
Dwight and Dwayne came to our church in Phoenix, AZ to lead a revival a couple of times when I was a teenager there. They would say that we could tell them apart because Dwight had long hair and Dwayne cut his short. The connection was that President Dwight Eisenhower was a long way away in Washington, D.C…thus the long hair connection. One year the revival included Tom Overton as the preacher. He was a popular pastor at the First Christian Church in Huntington Beach, CA. Many years later my husband and I were members there. I have several of the Good Twins albums. I have such good memories of them. My parents had them over for dinner once. They were wonderfully talented and great fun to be around.