RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Baptist leaders and Religious Herald staff gathered in downtown Richmond Jan. 11 to mark the day 183 years earlier the Virginia Baptist newsjournal published its first issue.
Marking the Herald’s 183rd anniversary were (from left) Jim White (holding a reproduction of the first Herald’s front page), Bob Bass, Eddie Stratton, Marty Garber, Barbara Francis, Fred Anderson and Jim Slatton.
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The group gathered on the sidewalk near the intersection of Main and 10th streets, the site of the paper’s offices on Jan. 11, 1828.
“We felt it was a good time to recall the vision of those early Baptist pioneers who saw a need to ‘inform, interpret and inspire’ their fellow Baptists in the Commonwealth,” said editor Jim White.
The Herald’s offices were located in various downtown locations, one of which burned in the Evacuation Fire of 1865. It currently shares space with the Virginia Baptist Mission Board on Emerywood Parkway in suburban Henrico County.
Marking the event were Bob Bass, president of the Baptist General Association of Virginia; Jim Slatton, chair of the BGAV’s budget committee; Herald trustee Jim Norvelle; BGAV treasurer Eddie Stratton; Fred Anderson, executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society; and Herald staffers White, Robert Dilday, Marty Garber and Barbara Francis.