A TRIBUTE TO BABS BAUGH from DANIEL VESTAL
APRIL 23, 1942 – JUNE 14, 2020

Barbara Nell “Babs” Baugh was the daughter of John and Eula Mae Baugh.  Their love for her, and her love for them formed and shaped her life more than anything else.  She was nurtured and supported from birth to childhood to adolescence to adulthood by her remarkable parents. 

And she would, in turn, love and honor them until the days they both died, and become, in her own right, a remarkable person.  It is impossible to think or speak about Babs without thinking and speaking of her parents and then speaking of her two daughters, Jackie Baugh Moore and Julie Baugh Cloud.  She was the center link in a community of three generations that have had enormous influence, especially in the moderate Baptist world.

After the death of her parents in 2007, she became President of the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation established by her parents in 1994.  Together with her parents, and then with her daughters, the Baugh Foundation has distributed more than $95 million to all kind of religious, educational and humanitarian causes, and especially to Baptist causes.  More than any other individual I know, Babs has influenced the CBF network of institutions, organizations and ministries through her generosity.  Her generosity and influence was never with the intention of control but only of encouragement and collaboration.

In 2012 The Baugh Foundation provided a $2.5 million grant to Mercer University to establish the Eula Mae and John Baugh Center for Baptist Leadership. I became Director with the goal of developing Christ-like Baptist leaders for Church and society, much like Babs and her parents. Babs exemplifies a Baptist congregational leader. She served the Woodland Baptist Church in San Antonio as a deacon, past church council, chair of the missions committee, choir member, director of the “Sonshine Singers” and many other leadership positions.

She served in so many roles of leadership in the Baptist community, the Christian community and the broader society that it would be impossible to recite them all. Here are a few: Founding  Board member and chair of Baptist Child Family Services of San Antonio, Board member of Mercer University, Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, Baptist Center for Ethics, Central Baptist Theological Seminary, B. H. Carroll Theological Seminary, President of Baylor University Alumni Association and Baylor University Development Council, Advisory Council of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at UT Health Science Center.   

A couple of years before I retired from CBF, she and I hosted a visioning retreat at Callaway Gardens, Georgia, and invited the organizational leadership that was representative of the CBF network.  She funded the expenses for every participant and spouse.  Her humor and fierce commitment to moderate Baptist causes was the key that helped us have honest and hopeful conversations.  It was a great gift.

Babs died June 14, 2020, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.  At her graveside memorial Molly Marshall, a longtime friend and respected theologian, offered these final words. The eulogy expressed the feelings of so many including my own. “Saints are those who refract the light of God.  In her compassion, warmth, humor, generosity and service, Babs Baugh has allowed us to see a joyful life.  While I cannot imagine the world without Babs in it, her joy is now complete, and we give thanks.”