Longtime missions advocate Laurelle Stoudenmire dies at age 80

Laurelle Stoudenmire — former missionary, missions advocate and Alabama Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) president — died Aug. 20. She was 80.

Stoudenmire worked for many years as a registered nurse in hospitals in Selma, Thomasville and Grove Hill. Inspired by her mother’s involvement with Woman’s Missionary Union, Stoudenmire began serving as director of WMU for Thomasville Baptist Church and Clarke Baptist Association in 1988 and later became an International Mission Board trustee.

In 1999, when her daughter and son-in-law were appointed as Southern Baptist representatives to the Philippines, she and her husband, Allen, began to get more personally involved in missions. She cofounded Missionary Parents Fellowship, then in 2006, the couple was appointed as IMB missionaries to Guatemala, where they served for two years.

Stoudenmire served as president of Alabama WMU from 2013 to 2015, and over the years she also faithfully served her church and community as a Bible study teacher, president of the Hospital Auxiliary and president of the Worthwhile Club of Thomasville.

She was preceded in death by a granddaughter, Bekah Kaye. She is survived by her husband; daughters, Jackie and Judy; sons, Jimmy and Jeffrey; 14 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.