The Ardelle & Hardy Clemons Endowment Fund
at Baptist News Global

The Ardelle & Hardy Clemons Endowment Fund was established in 2008 to help underwrite a student internship program at Associated Baptist Press (now Baptist News Global). Beginning with summer 2021, the program will function also as a graduate-level fellowship for recent seminary graduates.

Ardelle Clemons was a visionary member of ABP’s founding Board of Directors. She quickly became an enthusiastic, articulate and generous advocate for ABP’s vital role in Baptist life. At the time she rotated off the board in 2004, she held the distinction of being the longest-tenured director. Ardelle died in 2011 at age 93 following a long and courageous battle with Alzheimer’s Disease. She and Hardy had been married 57 years at the time of her death.

Hardy Clemons was one of the most beloved and respected leaders in Baptist life, serving as a pastor, author, counselor and speaker. His pastorates included Second Baptist Church, Lubbock, Texas, and then First Baptist Church, Greenville, S.C. After retiring in 2005, he and Ardelle moved to San Antonio, Texas, where Hardy later served for three years as executive interim pastor at Trinity Baptist Church. Hardy was the third moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (1993-94). He died in 2020.

In 2008 Jimmy and Kaye Nickell, close friends of the Clemons family for decades, provided a gift as seed funding for an endowment that would honor the shared ministry of Ardelle and Hardy. The choice of an internship program as the beneficiary of earnings from the endowment reflected an appreciation for Ardelle’s stalwart advocacy for a free press rooted in historic Baptist values, her life-long love of learning, and her deep devotion to college students and young ministers. (Jimmy Nickell, also one of ABP/BNG’s longest-tenured board members, died in November 2019.)

“Ardelle was passionate about the value of an autonomous, thoughtful and fair-minded news service for Baptist Christians,” Hardy noted. “Serving on ABP’s board during its formative years was one of the joys of her life. She would be a little embarrassed by all this attention in her name, but she would be so deeply proud of this investment in the future of Baptist News Global.”

To make a one-time gift or a recurring, monthly donation using our secure, online donation form, click here and select Ardelle and Hardy Clemons Endowment Fund in the Fund field. To give by mail, make your check payable to Baptist News Global and send to:

BNG
P.O. Box 23845
Jacksonville, FL 32241

Be sure to write “Clemons Fund” on the memo line.

If you have been blessed with financial resources that would enable you to consider a major gift of $10,000 or more to support the Clemons Fund, we would welcome an opportunity to arrange a personal visit to tell you more about the program and ways to structure your gift. Contact Mark Wingfield directly at [email protected].

All contributions to BNG and to the Clemons Endowment Fund are tax deductible to the extent provided by law.