Frank Shelby Groner

Frank Shelby Groner (1877–1943) was a lawyer, pastor of Baptist churches, chairman of the Southern Baptist Hospital Commission, executive secretary of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, director of fund-raising in Texas for the Southern Baptist Convention, founder of the Baptist Student Division and the Department of Evangelism, president of the College of Marshall, Texas (now East Texas Baptist University), and author of several religious books.

Frank Shelby Groner was born near the town of Weston, Texas in Collin County, Texas(Registration required) to William Christopher Groner and Cleopatra Clementine Dunnegan on January 7, 1877. His parents moved to Graham, Texas when he was three-years-old, where he started to preach by using a flat top trunk as a pulpit. Groner was the first-born of eight children, four boys and four girls. The family later removed to a farm in Jack County, Texas, where he attended school, where his father was the teacher, until he was fourteen.

He first attended the short-lived North Texas Baptist College in Jacksboro, Texas from the age of fourteen where he was awarded a Master of Science degree in 1896. His graduating thesis was on the subject of "The Evidence of Christianity as shown in Profane History".

Groner taught school for three years after graduation, one year in Jack County and two years in Benjamin, Texas.

Groner early settled on a career in law. Groner then studied at the University of Texas Law School. Groner was nominated as county attorney by the Jack County Democratic Society near the end of his second year in law school. He immediately took the bar exam. He passed the bar exam in 1900 and was elected as county attorney.

Groner's served as county attorney of Jack County, Texas from 1900 to 1904. after which he entered private practice of law.

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