A lifelong member of Rumple Memorial Church, Donald B. Saunders is a professor emeritus of history at Appalachian State University. He received his B.A. in history from Davidson College in 1962 and his Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1974. He has been a member of the faculty at Appalachian State University since 1971. His focus of study was nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and German history. He was the coordinator of the University Honors Program in History and the faculty advisor to Sigma Phi Epsilon honors fraternity. He retired in 2009.