Chris Caldwell of Louisville, Ky., is the new chairman of the Baptist News Global board of directors, succeeding Janice Anderson of Houston, who remains on the board but concluded a three-year term at the helm.
Chris Caldwell
Caldwell serves as a professor and vice president for academic affairs at Simmons College of Kentucky.
BNG’s board held its winter meeting via video conference Feb. 15-16, welcoming four new board members while two long-tenured board members rotated off. John Freeman of Dallas and Dan Lattimore of Bullard, Texas, completed terms of service on the BNG board but will continue service on the Associated Baptist Press Foundation board, which financially supports BNG.
New BNG board members are Austin Almaguer, lead pastor at Vienna Baptist Church in Vienna, Va.; Danette Kong, a chaplain from Kula, Hawaii; Oti Bunaciu, a seminary professor and pastor from Bucharest, Romania; and Erica Whitaker, senior pastor at Buechel Park Baptist Church in Louisville.
Larry Brumley, senior vice president for marketing communications and chief of staff at Mercer University in Macon, Ga., was named chair-elect of the board. Other board officers include Mike Parnell, pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C., secretary; and Mike Clingenpeel, retired pastor and editor from Richmond, Va., treasurer.
The ABP Foundation, a separate organization that owns and manages endowment assets that benefit BNG, also welcomed three new board members besides Freeman and Lattimore: Tom Cantwell, a hospital chaplain from Paducah, Ky., Joshua Goocey, a financial advisor from Winston-Salem, N.C.; and Bill Wilson, a BNG board member and director of the Center for Healthy Churches in Winston-Salem, N.C. The Foundation board is chaired by Mark Sanders, an attorney from Watkinsville, Ga.
The BNG board adopted a $532,000 budget for fiscal year 2021, projecting income from the ABP Foundation, other foundations and individual donors. BNG is a reader-supported news service with no subscription fees.
In his report to the board, BNG Executive Director and Publisher Mark Wingfield said BNG’s website had about 4 million pageviews during calendar year 2020. During 2020, BNG published 1,049 original articles of news, opinion and analysis.