Baptist journalist and educator Craig Bird died Dec. 12 at age 72 due to complications from a fall he experienced the week before, according to his family.
Bird, a Texas native, most recently served 17 years as a professor at Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio, Texas, where he taught cross-cultural communications and theology.
Craig Bird
Prior to that, he served a string of Baptist agencies as a journalist, most notably as a pioneer in a bold experiment by the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board in the mid-1980s to place professional journalists on the field around the world. He and his wife, Melissa, were assigned to Nairobi, Kenya.
Bird came to that missionary calling from the staff of the SBC’s Baptist Press, where he had been features editor. The family left Nashville and moved to Fort Worth, Texas, for basic theological education at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary before moving to Kenya for a decade, 1985 to 1996. Although based in Nairobi, Kenya, he wrote and photographed news and feature stories in 26 African countries.
He had previously earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas and later earned a master’s degree in English from Hardin-Simmons University.
Other Baptist institutions where he served on staff include Hardin-Simmons University, Southwestern Seminary, South Texas Children’s Home, Baptist Children’s Home of North Carolina, and Baptist Child and Family Services.
He got his start in journalism working at the Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times and the Lawton (Okla.) Constitution-Press. He entered the field of Southern Baptist journalism at the peak of that movement, when there was a network of more than 100 professional journalists working across the denomination.
Friends and colleagues mourned his passing and recalled memories of his kindness and gentle spirit.
“His missionary heart, kindness and grace was second to none,” said a statement from BUA, where he was known for this motto: “Grace always happens.”
Bird is survived by his wife, Melissa, and their two sons, Brant and Coby. Arrangements are pending.
