The longest-serving editor in the 143-year history of The Baptist Courier has died.

John Roberts died Wed., Aug. 15, 2012, at the Rolling Green Village retirement community in Greenville following a brief illness. He was 85.

He joined the Courier staff in 1965 as associate editor and business manager. He succeeded S.H. Jones as editor and held that position from 1966 until his retirement in 1996.

After renting space from its printer for years, the Courier, under Roberts’ leadership, purchased property for its own facility on Manly Street in Greenville (near the original site of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), constructing its first offices in 1967-68 and expanding them in 1978-79. While he was editor, circulation of the Courier reached its highest point at more than 120,000.

Don Kirkland, who succeeded Roberts as editor, said that his predecessor “raised the bar of professionalism significantly higher,” adding, “his professionalism coupled with a love for, and a commitment to, Christian journalism and denominational service deserve highest praise and appreciation.”

Roberts, a native of Shelby, N.C., graduated from Gardner-Webb College, Furman University and the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. He began his career as a public school teacher in Gastonia, N.C. He later worked at the Gastonia Gazette and Gardner-Webb College.

Before coming to the Courier, he was public relations director for Baptist Children’s Homes of North Carolina in Thomasville and was editor of its publication, Charity and Children.

Roberts served as president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention in 1979-80. He also was chairman of trustees for the former Radio and Television Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention in Fort Worth, Texas, and president of the Southern Baptist Press Association, which now is the Association of State Baptist Papers.

He was awarded the Order of the Palmetto, the state’s highest citation for a civilian, by Gov. Carroll Campbell.

Roberts held honorary doctorates from Gardner-Webb, Furman and Charleston Southern universities.

As he approached retirement, Roberts wrote in an editorial that it had been “a high honor and a special privilege” to serve as the Courier’s editor.

“For as long as I can remember,” he said, “I wanted to be a newspaper editor. I had a growing awareness also that God had a claim on me. As the two merged, I have been the most fortunate of men.”

In his last editorial dated Feb. 29, his final day at the Courier, Roberts turned his thoughts to the denomination he had served for three decades. “South Carolina Baptists,” he said, “have the potential for greatness” with the approach of the next century.

“My prayer,” he concluded, “is that we will go into the 21st century as a strong, inclusive convention. Anything less holds the seeds of ultimate and utter failure. On the other hand, working and worshipping together with nobody pushed aside can glorify God as we become his church.”

Roberts is survived by his wife, Helen, six children and eight grandchildren.

Funeral services were held Aug. 17 at First Baptist Church, Greenville.