Raymond Coppenger

Dr. Raymond Arthur Coppenger, 100, was born on September 20, 1909, near Tellico Plains in East Tennessee. He was preceded in death in 2000 by Agnes, his dear wife of 56 years, and in 2007, by his beloved daughter Anne Coppenger.

He is survived by his sister Dorothy, by his children, Mark Coppenger and Susan Coppenger Akin, by his grandchildren, Caleb Coppenger, Jedidiah Coppenger, Chesed Coppenger Broggi, John Akin, and Rebecca Akin Copico, and by his six great-grandchildren, Alethia, Asher, Josiah, and Susannah Coppenger, Lois Broggi, and a baby Akin, due in April.


Dr. Coppenger was a Southern Baptist minister of the gospel, who pastored churches in Tennessee and Virginia, who served as a Navy chaplain in the Pacific in WWII, who was Baptist Student Union director at Auburn University and the University of Kentucky, and who was a religion and philosophy professor at three Baptist colleges in Tennessee before coming to Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, in 1954, where he served as chairman of the department and where he was appointed an emeritus professor in 1980. He earned the bachelors at Mercer University, the masters at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the doctorate at the University of Edinburgh.


Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Saturday November 28, 2009 at First Baptist Church, Arkadelphia, with Drs Lee McGlone and Mark Coppenger presiding. Beginning at noon in the auditorium, visitation will precede the service. Burial will be at Rest Haven Memorial Gardens. The family requests that memorials be made through First Baptist Church, Arkadelphia, to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions.