Leland Webb
Leland Webb, longtime staff member and editor of the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board’s magazine, The Commission, died Jan. 8. He was 91.
Webb served on the staff of The Commission 32 years, the final 15 years as editor, leading up to his retirement in 1995. Previously, he was assistant editor of the Baptist Messenger, the weekly newspaper of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.
Veteran Baptist journalists credit Webb with piloting The Commission through its “golden age” of reporting about Southern Baptist mission work around the globe. Under Webb’s leadership, the missions magazine became must reading for Baptists interested in mission work in foreign lands. It not only told the stories of missionaries and their colleagues overseas, but it also explored the global issues and trends that shaped missions.
Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, The Commission and its photographers and writers regularly won top honors in journalism competitions against fellow Baptists, other religion journalists and secular publications.
Webb propelled the magazine in collaboration with four primary partners. In the early 1980s, Keith Parks became president of the Foreign Mission Board — later renamed the International Mission Board — and gave its communications staff permission to tell the missions story with strong visuals and compelling stories. The board hired Don Rutledge, a legendary photographer who had helped the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board transform its magazine, Home Missions, to set its visual standard. Bob Stanley, the foreign board’s news editor, put together a stellar staff of news and feature writers. And Robert O’Brien, former news editor for the Baptist Press news agency, set up an overseas correspondent network.
Webb was born in McAlester, Okla., and earned degrees from Oklahoma Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition to his work as a journalist, he served as a supply preacher and missions speaker in hundreds of churches in Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia.
He had been a member of Lakeside Baptist Church in Henrico, Va., since 1964. He served the congregation as a trustee, deacon, assistant moderator and also teacher of a men’s Sunday school class for more than 40 years.
In retirement, Webb learned to play the saxophone and participated in at least five bands, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He also volunteered with the Henrico County Police Division.
His wife, Geneva, died Aug. 30, 2021, three days after their 67th wedding anniversary. He is survived by two children, Kathryn Bradley, and her husband, Curt, of Durham, N.C., and Charles F. Webb and his wife, Jennifer, of Wappingers Falls, N.Y.; seven grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.