Reba Cobb and Patrick Anderson Collection

Born and raised in rural Alabama in the 1940s and 1950s, Reba Cobb earned the M.Div. from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the late 1960s. In 1983, she served on the original steering committee for Baptist Women in Ministry and also as the co-founder and coordinator of the Center for Women in Ministry. After serving as minister of younger youth at Crescent Hills Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, until 1986, she then pursued secular work as a political campaign manager, the executive director of the Louisville Library Foundation, president of the Center for Women and Families, and executive director of the Kentuckiana Interfaith Community. She served on the original steering committee for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, as well as as its resource coordinator. She was also elected to the boards of Georgetown College, Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond, and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. She was ordained in the 1990s by Crescent Hill Baptist Church and finished her career as Associate Pastor for Spiritual Formation at Broadway Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, from 2005 to 2012. (From a 2016 interview with Baptist Women in Ministry, “This is What a Minister Looks Like: Reba Cobb” https://bwim.info/this-is-what-a-minister-looks-like-reba-s-cobb/)

Patrick Anderson received the B.A. degree from Furman University, the M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Ph.D. in criminology from Florida State University. He taught criminology at Florida Community College, Louisiana State University, the University of North Florida, and Florida Southern College. He worked as a juvenile probation caseworker in Fort Worth, Texas, and pastored several small churches in Florida, South Carolina, Texas, and Oklahoma. He served as a consultant for criminal justice agencies and as an expert witness in federal cases, some of which were resolved by the Supreme Court. Together with his wife, Carolyn, he helped to establish the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Florida, of which he was the first coordinator (1990-2002). He also served as chair of the National Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly Committee (1992-1993) and was elected Moderator (1992-1996). In 2010, he was named editor of Christian Ethics Today. (From biographies written for the Huffington Post [https://www.huffpost.com/author/patrick-anderson] and Christian Ethics Today [https://christianethicstoday.com/wp/about-us/our-editor/])