Tom Denton

Eastern Area Manager/Development and Trustor Services

Tom grew up near Clinton, NC, where his family farmed and operated a country grocery store. After spending his senior year in high school as a United States Senate Page in Washington, D.C., he attended Mars Hill College and graduated from Wake Forest University in 1969 with concentrated studies in Colonial American History and Political Science. He holds two graduate degrees from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, a Masters of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry, and has done post-graduate work at Furman, Stetson, and Oxford Universities.

After serving on church staffs in Fayetteville and Rocky Mount, Tom served as pastor of First Baptist Church Hillsborough from 1974 to 1987. For the next twelve years, he served as senior pastor of First Baptist Church New Bern. He has served two terms on the General Board and the Executive Committee of the Baptist State Convention and chaired the State Convention’s Long Range Planning Committee for 1996-2000.

Since March 2000, Tom has been the Eastern Area Manager with the North Carolina Baptist Foundation, where he assists churches in establishing planned giving ministries and families with Christian Estate stewardship issues. He and his wife, Rita, continue to live in New Bern, and have four adult children and three grandchildren.

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