Following the death of Dr. Lela McConnell, Dr. Carl Paulo assumed the presidency and faithful served until his death in 1981. Dr. Eldon Neihof followed in his footsteps, leading Kentucky Mountain Bible Institute into candidate status for institutional accreditation in 1989 with the Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges (now Association for Biblical Higher Education). In this transitional period, Dr. Wilfred Fisher, served as president of KMBI for nearly three years, seeing its final transition to an accredited four-year college, changing the name to Kentucky Mountain Bible College.
Dr. Philip Speas accepted the invitation to serve the new college president on October 11th, 1993. The following year, 1994, KMBC was granted full membership with the ABHE, bringing the college into a recognized position in higher education. As such, KMBC began offering a four-year Bachelor of Arts in Religion along with a two-year Associate of Arts in Biblical Studies.
Under the leadership of Dr. Phil Speas, the college has seen significant remodeling and construction including the completion of the Davis Memorial Building and Gibson Library, the Chatlos and Townhouse Apartments, Campus Commons, the Lela G. Coffehouse, and most notably the new Helen Matthew Luce Chapel and Fine Arts Building, completed in 2009. In addition to the physical campus, Dr. Speas has led in an expansion of faculty and staff and an increase in enrollment. After twenty years, Dr. Phil Speas continues to lead the college forward with wisdom, exemplifying a life surrendered to Christ.
KMBC began offering classes online in the fall of 2014.
Since our beginning, 70% of Kentucky Mountain Bible College graduates have entered Christian ministries. Eighteen percent have served as foreign missionaries in more than sixty countries. An impressive number have risen to leadership positions in many Christian organizations.
Kentucky Mountain Bible College graduates are promoting and demonstrating scriptural holiness as missionaries, ministers, and lay leaders in America and on mission fields around the world. Alumni are filling places of Christian leadership in many denominations, mission societies, and other Christian organizations.