ROANOKE — Alma Hunt, one of Baptists' best-known missions advocates, died June 14 in a Roanoke hospital. She was 98.
The Virginia native gained national recognition in 1948 when she became executive secretary of the Birmingham, Ala.-based Woman's Missionary Union, an auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention. She led WMU until her retirement in 1974.
Hunt's influence remained profound over the next 34 years as a volunteer worker with the Baptist World Alliance, the Southern Baptist Convention's Foreign (now International) Mission Board, Global Women and numerous Virginia Baptist organizations.
Photo courtesy of Virginia Baptist Historical Society
Alma Hunt
“[Alma Hunt] heralded the cause of missions straight from her heart,” said John Upton, executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia. “She has been a bold and influential leader not only for women, but also for all Baptists around the world.”
“Alma Hunt was an energetic and dynamic leader who helped move WMU forward, expanding its reach into Baptist churches with record growth for the cause of missions,” said Wanda Lee, WMU's current executive director. “She was a truly amazing woman who selflessly served others and actively sought to develop women leaders.”
Born in Roanoke in 1909, Hunt grew up at First Baptist Church there and was baptized at 10. She left briefly to earn a degree at Longwood College in Farmville, but returned to teach in Roanoke's public schools. In 1943, First Baptist's pastor, Walter Pope Binns, assumed the presidency of William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., and the next year he asked Hunt to become the school's dean of women. She held that post for four years — while also earning a master's degree in student-personnel administration at Columbia University — until she was elected WMU executive secretary.
During her tenure, WMU's membership grew to an all-time high of 1.5 million and its publishing arm expanded. National WMU also reorganized under her leadership.
Hunt led the organization to help form the Baptist World Alliance's women's division and the North American Baptist Women's Union, which she also served as president from 1964-67.
She was a vice president of the BWA from 1970-75, presiding over some of the sessions of the 13th BWA World Congress in 1975 in Stockholm, Sweden — the first woman to preside over a BWA general session.
Photo courtesy of Virginia Baptist Historical Society
Hunt in an undated photograph just before her election as WMU executive secretary.
BWA General Secretary Neville Callam lauded Hunt for being a reliable and longstanding supporter of the international church body. “We are thankful for people like her who give so much encouragement to those involved in the worldwide Baptist movement,” he said.
After retiring in 1974, she joined the Foreign Mission Board's staff in Richmond as an unpaid volunteer, traveling to 45 countries as a consultant for women's mission work. She maintained a rigorous stateside schedule speaking and writing on behalf of missions.
In 1985 she returned to Roanoke to care for her mother, while continuing to speak around the country and to write. In 1995, she was the only woman invited as a featured speaker at the 150th anniversary celebration of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Missions is what makes me get up in the morning,” she said at the time.
In the 1990s, additional recognitions came her way with the naming of national WMU's Hunt Library and Archives and of its Alma Hunt Museum on missions education; of Hunt Hall at Virginia WMU's retreat center; of the Alma Hunt Cottage to house adults with developmental disabilities at HopeTree Family Services (formerly Virginia Baptist Children's Home); and of the Alma Hunt Theological Library at the John Leland Center for Theological Studies in Arlington.
In 1998, Virginia Baptists named their state missions offering for her.
Other honors followed. In 2001, she received the Jeter Award for denominational service from the Religious Herald. In 2002, she was inducted into the Mainstream Baptist Network Hall of Fame. In 2004, she received the Judson-Rice Award for Baptist leadership from Baptists Today.
She was awarded an honorary doctor of humanities degree from William Jewell, and an honorary doctor of divinity degree from the University of Richmond.
In 2003, First Baptist, Roanoke, voted to sever its relationship with BGAV and affiliate with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia, a state convention formed in opposition to what it claimed was liberalism in the BGAV. Four days after the vote, Hunt joined Rosalind Hills Baptist Church in Roanoke, ending a nearly 94-year relationship with First Baptist.
“Nothing within me wants to sever relationship with the body of Virginia Baptists which has brought such blessings to my life,” she said at the time.
Last January, Rosalind Hills asked Hunt to let them ordain her to gospel ministry — and she agreed.
Hunt, who never married, is survived by nephew, William D. Roe, Jr. of Roanoke; her niece, Mary Anna Hunt of Indianapolis, Ind.; and by seven great-nephews and -nieces.
Funeral services were held at Rosalind Hills June 18, with burial in the family plot at Evergreen Cemetery in Roanoke.
The family requested that memorials be sent to national WMU, Virginia WMU or the BWA.
Julie Walters contributed to this story.