John B. Hill, 87, a former West Columbia resident and missionary to Nigeria, died Dec. 20, 2013, at Martha Franks Baptist Retirement Center in Laurens.
Hill was born July 15, 1926, in Saint George, S.C., and professed faith in Christ at Old Saint George Baptist Church as a teenager.
He graduated from Saint George High School in 1944 and served in the U.S. Navy from 1944-46. He graduated from Furman University in 1949 and continued his preparation for foreign mission service at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dallas, where he met Louise Lewis, a nurse trained at the South Carolina Baptist Hospital and also a missions volunteer. They were married in 1951.
Hill served as minister of education at Westside Baptist Church in West Columbia and instructor at the South Carolina Baptist Hospital until his appointment as a missionary to Nigeria in 1955, under the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, as it was known then. He served in Nigeria for 35 years as a teacher, school principal, associational missionary/church planter, and guesthouse manager until his retirement in 1990. While on stateside assignments, he was a member at Memorial Baptist Church in Saint George, Sans Souci and Overbrook Baptist churches in Greenville, and Greenlawn Baptist Church in Columbia. He and his wife went back to Nigeria for a year as volunteers in 1993-94. He was the founder of the Baptist Pastors’ School in Jos, Nigeria. His retirement years were spent in Cayce and West Columbia.
Survivors include his wife, who is a resident of Martha Franks Retirement Center, five children, 10 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.