By Bob Allen
Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler, 84, former head of the Southern Baptist Convention Woman’s Missionary Union and an early champion of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, died Jan. 2 after a long illness.
John David Hopper, former president of the European-based International Baptist Theological Seminary and one of the first persons to be commissioned as Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel, died Jan. 10 at age 80.
Orville Scott, long-time communications officer for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, died Jan. 12 at age 80.
Dean Smith, the coach who built University of North Carolina basketball into a program of consistent national significance, died Feb. 7. Smith, 83, was a member of Binkley Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C.
David Lockard, a Southern Baptist missionary who established the first Baptist seminary in Central Africa before heading up race relations and world hunger awareness for the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission (now Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission), died March 14 at age 89.
Rachel Nicole Bates, a 19-year-old freshman biology major at Wayland Baptist University, died by suicide in a university residence hall March 31.
Gardner Taylor, an African-American Baptist pastor and civil rights leader dubbed the “prince of preachers,” died Easter Sunday, April 5, at age 96.
Roger Omanson, 68, who except for teaching eight years at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary devoted his career to Bible translation with the United Bible Societies, died April 30 after a short battle with pancreatic cancer.
Richard Lin, a church music professor and choir director at Oklahoma Baptist University, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, died May 21, two days before his 90th birthday, of prostate cancer.
Phil Lineberger, 69, pastor of Sugar Land Baptist Church near Houston and former president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, died May 31. A family spokesman said Lineberger “lost a battle with depression and took his own life.”
Don McGregor, a founder of Associated Baptist Press and longtime editor of the Baptist Record in Mississippi, died June 30 at age 91.
James Dunn, 83, former executive director of the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, died July 4.
Phillip Davis, founder and senior pastor of Nations Ford Community Church in Charlotte, N.C., died Aug. 29 in an accidental shooting while cleaning a pistol.
John Gibson, professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, took his own life Aug. 24 after his name was exposed in the hack of the Ashley Madison website for people looking for extramarital affairs.
Diana Garland, founding dean of Baylor University’s school of social work, died Sept. 21 after a five-month battle with pancreatic cancer.
Kelly Gissendaner, valedictorian of her class in a prison theological studies program led by a consortium including Mercer University, was executed Sept. 30 for the 1997 murder of her husband.
Steve Case, 64, a member of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty board, died Oct. 8 from injuries sustained in a fall while in Washington to attend a BJC board meeting.
Piano professor Maurice Hinson, longest-serving faculty member ever at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, succumbed to cancer Nov. 11 at age 84.
Raouf Ghattas, 69, a retired Southern Baptist missionary serving as pastor of the Arabic Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn., the only Arabic-speaking church in the Tennessee Baptist Convention, died Nov. 25 after suffering a heart attack.
DaMarco Trevon Duncan, 21, a student at Chowan University in Murfreesboro, N.C., was killed in an off-campus shooting Dec. 5.
Wesley M. (Pat) Pattillo, a longtime communications and development executive for both Baptist and ecumenical organizations, died Dec. 22 after a six-month battle with leukemia. He was 75.