Roanoke, Va. (ABP)—Alma Hunt, one of Baptists’ best-known missions advocates, died June 14 in a Roanoke, Va., hospital. She was 98.

The Virginia native gained national recognition in 1948 when she became executive director of the Birmingham, Ala.-based Woman’s Missionary Union, an auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention. She led WMU until her retirement in 1974.

Hunt’s influence remained profound over the next 34 years as a volunteer worker with the Baptist World Alliance, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Foreign (now International) Mission Board, Global Women and numerous Virginia Baptist organizations.

Hunt “heralded the cause of missions straight from her heart,” said John Upton, executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia. “She has been a bold and influential leader not only for women, but also for all Baptists around the world.”

Born in Roanoke in 1909, Hunt grew up at First Baptist Church of Roanoke and was baptized at age 10. She left briefly to earn a degree at Longwood College in Farmville, Va., but returned to teach in Roanoke’s public schools. In 1943, pastor of First Baptist, Roanoke, Walter Pope Binns, assumed the presidency of William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., and the next year he asked Hunt to become the school’s dean of women. She held that post for four years—while also earning a master’s degree in student-personnel administration at Columbia University—when she was elected WMU executive director.

During her tenure, WMU’s membership grew to an all-time high of 1.5 million and its publishing arm expanded. Hunt led the organization to help form the Baptist World Alliance’s women’s division and the North American Baptist Women’s Union, which she served as president from 1964-67. She was vice president of the BWA from 1970-75.

After retiring in 1974, she joined the staff of the Foreign Mission Board in Richmond, Va., as an unpaid volunteer, traveling to 45 countries as a consultant for women’s missions work.

In 1985, she returned to Roanoke to care for her mother, while continuing to speak and write around the country. In 1995, she was the only woman invited as a featured speaker at the 150th anniversary celebration of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Missions is what makes me get up in the morning,” she said at the time.

In the 1990s, additional recognitions came her way with the naming of WMU’s Hunt Library and Archives and of its Alma Hunt Museum on missions education; of Hunt Hall at Virginia WMU’s retreat center; of the Alma Hunt Cottage to house adults with developmental disabilities at HopeTree Family Services (formerly Virginia Baptist Children’s Home); and of the Alma Hunt Theological Library at the John Leland Center for Theological Studies in Arlington, Va.

In 1998, Virginia Baptists’ 106-year-old state missions offering was named for her.

Hunt, who never married, is survived by a nephew, William Roe Jr. of Roanoke; niece, Mary Anna Hunt of Indianapolis, Ind.; and by seven great-nephews and -nieces.

Funeral services were held June 18 at Rosalind Hills Baptist Church in Roanoke, Va., which she joined in 2003.