FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN SIKESTON ORDAINS FIRST WOMAN MINISTER

SIKESTON -- As a child growing up in a family of ministers, Billie Fair knew all about the life of a Southern Baptist preacher, but she never thought she would be one.

"If you'd have told me six years ago that I'd be a Southern Baptist preacher, I'd have said I was having a mid-life crisis," Fair said.

But she wasn't; she was just fulfilling her calling to join the ministry. Fair was recently ordained by the First Baptist Church in Sikeston. She graduated in May from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City and will begin looking for work in the fall.

Most Baptist ministers are attending the Southern Baptist Convention this week in New Orleans, but Fair isn't. In the last 15 years the denomination has been divided over several issues including the ordination of women.

Delegates voted Wednesday to boycott Disney theme products, parks, movies and products because the company extends benefits to companions of gay employees. However, each local and state association, church and member is not bound to the boycott.

Fair has attended past conventions, but was disappointed. Female pastors are rare, so Fair knew her work would be difficult. "I'm plowing the field to get it ready for other women to come," she said. Currently, Fair serves as outreach director at the church.

Although she's done some preaching, Fair never started out with that goal. "That's not to say I won't do it full time, but I've not gone out looking for it. My heart's desire is to be a hospital chaplain."

Most of the preaching opportunities have come as part of her classwork. During her independent-study and satellite classes, Fair was required to tape several sermons that were then reviewed by a committee at the church.

Since ovarian cancer kept Fair from attending classes in Kansas City, she enrolled in satellite courses through the Baptist Student Center at Southeast Missouri State University. When the satellite courses were eliminated, she was allowed to complete her degree through independent study.

Although battling the cancer has been difficult, it also provided the best opportunity for Fair to finish her degree. "It's been a miracle; it worked out along the way," she said, adding that otherwise she would still be teaching public school in Sikeston. "I felt God calling me to the ministry in 1990, but I was teaching school and had a son in college. I knew there was no way that I could quit, go to college, and still put him through school."

Her husband, Wayne, works at an employment office and owns a cleaning business in Sikeston.

When Fair first told her 87-year-old father about her desire to enter the ministry, his first response was a warning. "He told me that he didn't approve of women preachers or ordaining women," she said. But now her father is supportive. And if an 87-year-old man can change his mind, anyone can, Fair said.

First Baptist Church ordained Fair's father and brother as ministers before performing the same ceremony for her in March. About 150 people attended the service, including several pastors of other churches in the community.

Stephen Huffstutler served on the guidance committee at the church while Fair was finishing her degree. "She's fulfilling her obligation to minister," he said of Fair's work. "That can be done no better by a man than it can by Billie."

Huffstutler opposed the idea of ordaining women when he first began serving on the committee, but changed his mind after seeing Fair at work.

"We've seen her minister in so many ways and with a loving spirit," Huffstutler said. "She's touched so many lives."

The six-member committee was so impressed by Fair's work as a student minister that it decided to recommend her for ordination.

Last August a committee member asked church leaders what needed to be done before a Sunday school class could recommend her for ordination, Fair said. "Then people began popping up in favor of it."

Both Fair and the committee wrote letters to the church deacons to inquire about ordination. Although there was some initial opposition, Fair's recommendation was unanimously approved.

Fair first thought that to be ordained she would have to leave the Baptist church. "It was tempting," she said. "But I like Baptists and my doctrine is Baptist."