User:Teblick/Jesse Fletcher

Jesse Conrad Fletcher (April 9, 1931 - 2018) was a Southern Baptist minister, missions leader, educator, and historian.

Early years
Fletcher was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Jesse N. Fletcher and Ruby Arnold Fletcher. His father was an insurance executive. After graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio in 1948, he received a bachelor of business administration degree from Texas A&M University in 1952. He was an honor student at the university, where he also became a lieutenant colonel in the Corps of Cadets and lettered in golf two years.

Pastorates
Manor Baptist Church of San Antonio licensed Fletcher to preach and ordained him to the ministry during his senior year in college. He served as pastor of First Baptist Church, Knoxville, Tennessee, from 1975 until 1977.

Missions
Fletcher began working for the Southern Baptist Convention's Foreign Mission Board in 1960 and continued to work with the organization for 15 years. In the mid-1960s, he originated the Board's missionary Journeyman program, which a news article on the Baptist Standard website said was "inspired both by the popularity of the Peace Corps and by student involvement in summer missions." Participants in the program spent two years each in missions service overseas.

Academic administration and teaching
After his seminary graduation in 1958, Fletcher became director of Baptist student activities and a teacher of Bible at the University of Texas, Austin. In 1977, Fletcher became president of Hardin-Simmons University.

Books
Fletcher was the author of The Southern Baptist Convention, A Sesquicentennial History, among other works.

Personal life
In February 1953, Fletcher married Dorothy Jordan. They remained wed until her death on October 16, 2013. They had two children.