SAN ANTONIO (ABP) — Ardelle Clemons—a founding board member of Associated Baptist Press, student minister and veteran pastor's wife—died Nov. 26 after a long illness. She was 93.
A graduate of the University of Oklahoma and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, she worked as a Baptist student minister at Rice University, Baylor Medical School and Texas Tech University.
Ardelle and Hardy Clemons
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For 57 years she was married to Hardy Clemons, a past moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Clemons was former pastor of First Baptist Church in Georgetown, Second Baptist Church in Lubbock and First Baptist Church in Greenville, S.C. He also served several years as executive pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio.
In 1990 she joined the first board of directors of Associated Baptist Press, an autonomous news service formed in response to censorship concerns stemming from the firing of two top editors of the Southern Baptist Convention’s denominational news service, Baptist Press. She was the longest-serving member of ABP’s board when she rotated off in 2004. ABP directors established an endowment fund in honor of her and her husband in 2008.
She is survived by her husband and their daughter, Kay Watt of San Antonio; two grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Her memorial service is scheduled at 11 a.m. Monday, Dec. 5, at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio.
In lieu of flowers, the family invites friends to make a contribution in her memory to the Ardelle Clemons Endowment Fund at the Associated Baptist Press, P. O. Box 23769, Jacksonville, Fla., 32241.
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