The Rev. Billy Smith, 69, Seminary Professor Submitted By N.O.V.A. July 2005 Times Picayune 01-31-1998 ************************************************* Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ The Rev. Billy K. Smith, a Bible scholar who became one of the most popular faculty members at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and served briefly as its interim president, died Thursday of prostate cancer at his home in Carriere, Miss. He was 69. The Rev. Smith was interim president of the seminary for two months in early 1996 before the Rev. Chuck Kelley was selected for the post. By that time the Rev. Smith had been a faculty member for 20 years. His relationship with the seminary reached back 23 years before then, when he arrived as a student in 1953. A professor of Old Testament studies and Hebrew, the Rev. Smith was known as a demanding classroom teacher with high expectations. However, he also enjoyed a reputation as a self-effacing figure who never sought the promotions that marked his career from student to president. A frequent contributor on biblical subjects to various Southern Baptist publications, the Rev. Smith's work was read by pastors, Sunday school teachers and church members. He completed his last assignment, a series of commentaries on selected Psalms for Explore the Bible Commentary, a Southern Baptist quarterly, three weeks before his death. The Rev. Smith was born and raised in Spearsville, near the Arkansas border, and graduated from Louisiana Tech in Ruston. A star athlete as a youth, he played semiprofessional baseball and was teaching and coaching high school basketball as a newlywed in north Louisiana when he attended a weeklong revival in early 1953. The experience fired him for the ministry and sent him, his wife and their baby son to New Orleans for seminary training. By 1963, the Rev. Smith, still known as "Coach" to many, had earned master of divinity and doctor of theology degrees, specializing in Old Testament studies and Hebrew, and split his time between classroom work and leading churches in Houma, Oakdale, Miss., and Baton Rouge. While a pastor in Alvin, Texas, near Houston, he was asked to join the seminary faculty full-time in 1976. He rose to chairman of the division of biblical studies, vice president for academic affairs and provost of the graduate faculty before his retirement in 1996. Kelley called the Rev. Smith "the model of the seminary's core value of servant leadership." In an article on his retirement in the seminary magazine, the Rev. Smith insisted on inserting a passage critical of the calculated ambition he said he saw too frequently among seminary students and pastors. They were, he said, "trying to make connections to get to certain churches or schools, politicking to one day be in line for what they think are positions of stature." He wrote, "If you consider that God is sovereign, you just have to do what he has assigned you to do and wait on him." The Rev. Smith led evangelistic crusades in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1966 and in Seoul, South Korea, in 1970. Survivors include his wife, Irlene Monroe Smith; three sons, Kenneth Smith of Slidell, David Smith of Stavanger, Norway, and Philip Smith of New Orleans; two daughters, Joyce Hall of Bogalusa and Debra Thames of Madison, Miss.; two brothers, George Smith of Marion and Lavon Smith of Monroe, Ga.; three sisters, Lanelle Rambin and Elizabeth Elkins, both of Spearsville, and Bette Theis of Baton Rouge; and seven grandchildren. A funeral will be held Sunday at 2 p.m. at First Baptist Church, 401 Goodyear Blvd., in Picayune, Miss. Visitation will be today from 6 to 9 p.m. at McDonald Funeral Home, 401 W. Canal St., Picayune. Burial will be in New Palestine Cemetery in Picayune. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary will hold a memorial service Feb. 27 at 10 a.m. in Leavell Chapel.