Lettie Perry, who had role in SBTC founding, dies at 85

Lettie Perry, a Texas woman who played a major role in the founding of the SBTC and the hiring of its first executive director, died April 24. She was 85.

Perry was a long-time organist and pianist, playing at churches her husband, Casey, pastored, and also at SBTC evangelism conferences and senior adult camps.

During the late 1990s, she was one of a group of individuals who argued the BGCT had drifted too far to the left and that Texas needed another state convention. 

She was a member of the committee that hired Jim Richards as the first executive director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, which was formed in 1998. Richards still serves in that role.

“When it became apparent that the state convention would not experience the same type of return to biblical fidelity as the Southern Baptist Convention, she was one of the voices calling for a new state convention,” said Richards. “Because of her courageous spirit she was chosen to be on the search committee for an executive director as the new convention was being formed.”

Lettie, Richards said, “stood by her convictions.”    

She and her husband served in North Dakota and Kansas as well as the Texas cities of Mercury, Terrell, Arlington and Malakoff. She started hand bell choirs at multiple churches.

She is survived by Casey, her husband of 64 years. 

“Over these last 20 plus years she remained a constant by her husband’s side in the advancement of the gospel,” Richards said. “Her musical talents and missionary zeal was only muted by her debilitating illness in the last few years of her life. She is now enjoying her eternal home she had secured by receiving Jesus as her Savior. My life was enriched beyond measure by my friendship with Lettie Perry. I look forward to seeing her again.”

Family will receive friends from 4 to 7 p.m. April 28 at Max Slayton Funerals and Cremations in Terrell, and from 4 to 7 p.m. April 29 at First Baptist Church of Malakoff. A graveside service will be held at 11 a.m. April 30 at Eastlawn Memorial Park in Early.