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Southern Baptist Convention votes to remove Jackson church

Calvary Baptist Church leaders say move was in response to female pastors

WAPT

Updated: 1:19 PM CST Feb 22, 2023Infinite Scroll Enabled

Michaila Franklin

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JACKSON, Miss. —

The Southern Baptist Convention voted to remove a Jackson church.

Leaders at Calvary Baptist Church said the church was removed from the convention over the role of women in pastors in their church. Linda Smith has led Calvary since 2013, when she became the church’s 11th pastor. Smith was the church’s first female pastor.

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Female leadership in the Southern Baptist church has been an ongoing debate for years. The church restricts the office of pastor to men.

“I guess it’s a little sadness, because we believe that we are doing — not the easiest part of the city of Jackson or Mississippi, but an important part,” Smith said. “We just feel like we are doing what God called us to do.”

Smith said nothing will change after the removal of the church from the Southern Baptist Convention. Six other churches were also removed by the convention’s executive committee.

Loved ones remember Vermont woman after her 52-year-old murder case is finally solved

“We now have two generations in our family who never knew her.”

WPTZ

Updated: 8:21 AM CST Feb 22, 2023

Carolyn Sistrand

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MILTON, Vt. —

The family of Rita Curran and her Milton, Vermont, community finally have answers after waiting nearly 52 years to find out who killed the beloved teacher.

Curran was only 24 years old and a teacher at Milton Elementary School when she was sexually assaulted and murdered inside her Burlington apartment on July 19, 1971.

Her case went cold for more than five decades until DNA testing brought it back to life. On Tuesday, the Burlington Police Department identified the killer as her upstairs neighbor William DeRoos, who they discovered died in 1986.

“We now have two generations in our family who never knew her,” Mary Campbell, Curran’s sister, said.

“I pray to my parents, and I pray to Rita. My wife Nancy tells me we will get through this, we are Curran strong,” Tom Curran, Rita’s brother, added.

Reaction came in from across the region and across the country.

“This is one of those cases where I regretted that I couldn’t find the killer with these very hard-working detectives but I’m so proud that the Burlington Police Department,” former Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo, said.

Police arrest two men in connection to 1975 cold case in Indiana

Jim Robar, a Milton resident, was in Curran’s second-grade class. He remembers his favorite teacher as being kind, generous and beautiful from the inside out.

“We actually did a play the year that I had her, I forgot what the play was about, but I was a dancing clown holding a teddy bear,” Robar said. “She told me that I could keep the teddy bear and I still have the teddy bear, I just can’t find it.”

Robar believes Curran had a passion for teaching and that’s why her impact has been felt in his life for five decades. He doesn’t want anyone to forget her name or her legacy.

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