RALEIGH, N.C. (ABP) — For decades, R. Gene Puckett was a leader in Baptist journalism — as editor of North Carolina's Biblical Recorder for 16 years and earlier as Baptist state paper editor in Maryland and Ohio and managing editor in Kentucky. Now his influence will be extended to future generations of aspiring Baptist journalists through the establishment of the R. Gene Puckett Internship of Associated Baptist Press.
For the past decade, ABP has hired one or more summer interns, mostly from Baptist colleges. The students report full time, working both in the ABP office in Jacksonville, Fla., and with partner publications around the country.
The endowment, when fully funded, will pay for the stipend and expenses of those interns. Edwin and Laura Anne Vick of Raleigh, N.C., have pledged the lead gift of $125,000 for this endowed fund. The Vicks have a long-time association with Puckett.
“Gene Puckett is a tireless advocate for true and faithful Baptist leadership,” said Ed Vick. “Still to this day, Gene's influence spreads across the state of North Carolina and beyond as a voice for much-cherished and historic Baptist principles, especially freedom. Laura Anne and I are grateful to Gene Puckett for his voice of advocacy within, and well beyond, the borders of North Carolina for all of our historic Baptist principles as a most-respected historian.”
Puckett, as a founding member of the ABP Board of Directors, championed the idea of internships as a way ABP could help influence future generations of Baptist journalists.
“Gene Puckett was, and is, a truth-teller,” said Randall Lolley, longtime friend of the Pucketts and a Baptist leader. “I'm afraid that truth-telling has become a lost commodity in Baptist life. The establishment of the Puckett Internship by ABP means that aspiring journalists will encounter the legacy of at least one champion of truth-telling in a world of Baptists who need truth now more than ever before.”
ABP will inaugurate the endowment and recognize the life work of Puckett during ABP's annual Religious Freedom Award banquet, which will be held Sept. 11 in Raleigh in conjunction with the semi-annual meeting of the ABP board of directors.
Long-range plans call for summer, semester and yearlong internships. Funds are being received by ABP to continue building the endowment, which already has had another $25,000 pledged from other donors.
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