Former RTVC president Johnson dies at 82

HENDERSON, Nev. — Jack B. Johnson, the last president of the former Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Radio and Television Commission (RTVC), died March 5 in Henderson, Nevada. He was 82.

Johnson was RTVC’s president from 1990 to 1997 when the broadcast ministry became part of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) in an SBC restructuring. After NAMB’s formation, he served as special assistant to the president for development and special projects until his retirement in September 2000.

Before his election as RTVC president, Johnson had been executive director-treasurer of the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention for 11 years. Prior to that role he served as a pastor for nearly 25 years in churches in Oklahoma and California. He was elected as president of the California’s state convention in 1975.

The history of RTVC dates back to the formation of a Radio Committee at the 1938 SBC annual meeting. Later called the Radio Commission, it became RTVC in 1955, according to “The Southern Baptist Convention: A Sesquicentennial History” by the late Jesse C. Fletcher. (BP)