RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) — Alma Hunt, who led the Southern Baptist Woman's Missionary Union from 1948-1974, received the fourth annual Judson-Rice Award April 30 at Richmond's Second Baptist Church.
The award, which bears the names of Luther Rice and pioneer missionaries Ann and Adoniram Judson, was presented by Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler, Hunt's successor as national WMU executive. She presented the award on behalf of the board of directors of the independent news journal Baptists Today.
Previous recipients of the Judson-Rice Award for leadership with integrity are Jimmy Allen, Tony Campolo and Russell Dilday.
A description of early Baptist mission proponent Rice as “quick-witted, sociable, with uncommon obstinacy” fits Alma Hunt as well, said Crumpler when presenting the award to Hunt. Like the Judsons and Rice, who stirred up the early missionary zeal in the United States, Crumpler said Hunt, now 94, could “move people to action.”
Crumpler recounted Hunt's longtime career in education before turning her full attention to missions, with a particular emphasis on the global impact of women. Through her work with WMU and retirement ventures for the then-Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, Hunt traveled to more than 90 countries building up women's mission organizations.
Hunt presided over a session of the Baptist World Alliance in 1975, while serving as vice president, becoming the first woman to do so at an assembly of the worldwide fellowship. But that, said Crumpler, was not the only ground she broke in Baptist life. “[H]istory records that she was the first female to wear shorts at Ridgecrest [Baptist Conference Center].”
Allen, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and also a member of the Baptists Today board, deemed Hunt “the Steel Magnolia of Baptist missions.” Using Mary Lynn Hatfield's definition of a steel magnolia, Allen spoke of Hunt's “very essence of strength combined with femininity.”
Allen said that during her 26 years at the helm of WMU, the organization saw unprecedented growth both numerically and spiritually.
— Photo available from Associated Baptist Press.
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