Duke Kimbrough McCall

Duke Kimbrough McCall (September 1, 1914 – April 2, 2013) was an American Christian religious leader who served as Chief Executive Officer of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee, as president of two theological seminaries, as president of the Baptist World Alliance, and as a Baptist pastor.

Born in Meridian, Mississippi, McCall grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, one of five children of John W. McCall, an attorney and judge, and Lizette Kimbrough McCall, a leader in Southern Baptist mission support.

McCall attended Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina, from which he graduated summa cum laude as valedictorian in 1935.

While attending Furman, McCall met Greenville resident Marguerite Mullinnix. The couple married shortly after McCall's graduation and raised four sons: Duke Jr. and Douglas McCall (twins), John Richard McCall, and Michael McCall.

Following his first wife's death in 1983, McCall married Winona Gatton McCandless, the widow of Louisville telephone company executive Paul McCandless.

After deciding to pursue ministry instead of law, McCall declined his acceptance from Vanderbilt Law School to enroll at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, earning the Th.M. degree in 1938 while serving as a fellow to the seminary's president, John R. Sampey. McCall then earned a Ph.D. from the seminary in 1941. While completing his Ph.D., he served as pastor of a small Baptist church in Woodville, Tennessee.

McCall's first full-time pastorate, during the early years of World War II, was at Broadway Baptist Church, a prominent congregation in downtown Louisville.

In 1943, McCall was elected president of the Baptist Bible Institute of New Orleans, Louisiana, which less than three years later became New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

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