Hunter Riggins is forever engaged, quite literally, in wheeling and dealing. He is one of America’s leading automobile dealers; and across the years he has honed and refined the skills of relationship building, customer satisfaction and sealing the deal. And he does it with sincerity and integrity. The same skill set and the same character traits apply to Riggins’ dealings in church and denominational life.
Fred Anderson
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For over four decades the man from Poquoson has worked alongside leaders among Virginia Baptists and Southern Baptists, holding himself positions of responsibility and leadership. He has earned the respect of his colleagues in the automotive business, receiving the President’s Award from Ford 24 times! The story begins a long time ago.
In 1946 Hunter Riggins entered William & Mary with the intention that upon graduation he would be working almost any place other than the auto industry. His father had a dealership and the son had determined that such work was not for him. After graduation he worked for NASA; but as he puts it, “I got a letter from Mr. Truman asking me to solve the Korean War.” He must have been successful because he says, “When I came out of the Army the war was over!”
Riggins’ father had failing health and the son followed his father into the business. He already possessed his father’s work ethic and philosophy. When he was young, Hunter had asked his father for a car. The reply: “Son, when you have saved enough money to buy a car, come and see me.” When the time came, the father sold him a car — at cost. His father’s motto became his own: “The finest thing that walks through the door is a customer.” He maintains: “If you forget that, you are out of business.” And he adds: “I saw many a deal made just on a handshake.” He remembers that in the 1930s his father would give a “loaner” auto. “We would be on the way to church and somebody would be broken down and Dad would get them a loaner.”
In 1951 Hunter married Mary Heywood and the couple became active in Union Baptist Church in Gloucester where Riggins came under the tutelage of George Kissinger. His first foray into church work was with Royal Ambassadors. One Sunday Pastor Kissinger said that he wanted Hunter to go with him to camp. “My idea of camping was staying at a Holiday Inn,” laughs Riggins. Kissinger wanted the young man to see his camp, Woodcliff in Middlesex, which today is Camp Piankatank. “I tried every way to get out of going,” remembers Riggins. “I even asked the Lord to give me the flu. But that visit started a friendship.”
Hunter Riggins today.
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Hunter Riggins in 1967 after his election as BGAV president.
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It also started the auto dealer on a path of Christian servant leadership. He began serving on the Virginia Baptist General (now Mission) Board when the “Baptist Building” was at 1 West Franklin Street in downtown Richmond. In his mid-30s, Riggins was one of the young Turks on the board. He observed other members adamantly debating some issue on the floor of the meeting yet leaving with their arms around one another.
Riggins served on the first of several future study committees — the Committee of 24 — and he was at the front when the “Baptist Building” was erected on Monument Avenue. He led the BGAV budget committee for several years in the 1960s. He persuaded Lucius Polhill, the executive secretary, to help ministers take advantage of housing allowances for tax purposes. He was the key man in recommending Polhill’s successor, Richard M. Stephenson. He was president of the BGAV, 1967-68, followed by the presidency of the Foreign (now International) Mission Board, SBC, 1969-71. In his self-deprecating manner, Riggins insists that those were years that neither Baptist organization needed a president. In 1976 he served as first vice president of the SBC.
Riggins was chair of the search committee for the FMB when they selected Keith Parks to lead the missions agency. He was involved in the study to dispose of the International Baptist Theological Seminary at Ruschlikon and suggested that it be turned over to European Baptists. And it was Riggins who was chair of the space study which recommended the purchase of the present “Baptist Building” on Emerywood Parkway. The acquisition was wheeling and dealing at its ultimate as Virginia Baptists acquired a much needed larger building at a fraction of its worth. As board president, the man from Poquoson also steered the Virginia Baptist Homes through some of its roughest waters.
Now in his early 80s, Hunter Riggins reflects that his church life has been “an interesting pilgrimage.” “I had an opportunity to serve that I never thought a little nut and bolt from Poquoson would have had to serve; but I got credit for a lot of things that I only fell into. The Good Lord had his hand on them or they would have never taken place.”
Riggins remains active at Emmaus Church in Poquoson, where he is a deacon. During his presidency of the BGAV, the layman was called upon to speak and often the subject was on the role of deacons and laity. He urged that churches adequately compensate ministers and that they get out of “the housing business” so that a minister could accumulate home equity. “I thought we had failed pastors. God put me in a position to help ministers.” In his presidential address in 1967 he stated: “Our stewardship is involved in how we provide for our pastors.”
In 1967 he was at the beginning of a long pilgrimage in Baptist life; but he already had some observations. In his presidential address he shared, “Virginia Baptists are well represented on the [state] board where I can attest nothing is ‘rubber stamped.’ ” And the wheeler-dealer from Poquoson noticed something else different about Virginia Baptists: “[They] are characterized by cooperation rather than by competition.” He still maintains that “Virginia Baptists are my people!”
In 1970 at the Foreign Mission Board he told his fellow trustees: “I am a businessman. By trade and training I have had to learn to respect the monetary and material standards of this world. In the ‘dog eat dog’ competition of the age I’ve had to learn the goals and rules of the game called ‘success.’ Working on the [board’s] personnel committee, I’ve observed the love of Christ overcoming all other human affections in these splendid people, our missionaries. But for Jesus’ sake they go. Over and over again they prove to me that ‘there are values about which this world knows nothing.’ ” It was the testimony of M. Hunter Riggins Jr., a Christian wheeler/dealer.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies, located on the campus of the University of Richmond. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.