Baptist Briefs_102003

Posted: 10/17/03

Baptist Briefs

New PK head is Baptist. The new president of Promise Keepers, Thomas Fortson, is a member of Riverside Baptist Church in Denver, a Southern Baptist Convention church. Fortson had been executive vice president of the ministry.

Huckaby at Southwestern. Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will speak at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's Veterans Day chapel service Nov. 11. Huckabee, a former pastor, attended Southwestern.

Robert Burton

Bryan dies. Charles Willis Bryan, a former Southern Baptist missionary to Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia and retired senior administrator for the Foreign Mission Board, died Oct. 11. He was 80. Missionary colleagues praised Bryan as a visionary leader who had a gift for involving others in creative strategies to take the gospel to the whole world. In 1980, he was elected senior vice president for overseas operations and joined the staff at the IMB home office in Richmond, Va. After his 1988 retirement, Bryan helped Virginia Baptists establish missions partnerships with seven countries as director of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board's newly formed mission partnerships department. Most recently, he has served as a volunteer in the partnership missions department of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Prior to missionary appointment, he served in the U.S. Navy and was pastor of Sadler Baptist Church in Sadler. He is survived by his wife, the former Patricia Morgan Deaton of Wilmington, N.C.; two daughters, Carol Ann Griggs of Fort Worth, and Elizabeth Ann Bryant of Fort Worth; two stepdaughters, Joanna Deaton Bradley of Greenville, N.C., and Andrea Deaton of Philadelphia, Pa.; and four granddaughters. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Martha, and his second wife, the former Lois Blackburn.

Burton dies. Robert Burton, distinguished professor emeritus of conducting at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, died Oct. 8 after a brief bout with cancer. He was 78. Southwestern Seminary inaugurated an academic chair in his name in 2001, the first endowed chair in the music school. Burton taught at Southwestern from 1956 until his retirement in 1990. He conducted the Southwestern Singers and Oratorio Chorus, supervised conducting projects and theses and taught conducting classes and seminars. He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Rosemary, three children and their spouses and three grandchildren.