Portrait of William Arnold. IMB Photo

William “Bill” Edward Arnold, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Ghana, Nigeria and Gambia, died April 13, 2024. He was 95.  

Bill was born May 10, 1928, in Louisville, Kentucky, to the late H.L. and Bessie (Lynch) Arnold. He joined the Marines during his senior year at DuPont Manual High School and was honorably discharged in 1947. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Georgetown Baptist College in Georgetown, Kentucky, studied at Bellarmine College in Louisville and received his Th.M. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.  

In February 1951, Bill married LaVerne Hutchens.  

In 1957, the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) appointed Bill and LaVerne missionaries to Ghana. Bill was a church planter, high school headmaster, preacher, mission treasurer and pastor.  

After 11 years in Ghana, the Hutchenses returned to the United States to live in Louisville, where Bill worked primarily in hospital administration.  

In 1984, they were reappointed as missionaries in West Africa. There Bill served as mission treasurer and mission office director for the Baptist Mission of Nigeria, the organization of Southern Baptist missionaries there. Four years later, they were transferred to The Gambia, where Bill served as mission treasurer and business manager. In The Gambia, he was pastor of Glory Baptist Church in Serekunda and founded a Christian school there that is still thriving today. The couple served with the IMB for 18 years, total.  

Bill was preceded in death by his wife, LaVerne, who died in 2021.  

He is survived by his three daughters: Donna Rees, Susan Riordan and Karen Arnold. 

 A funeral service was held April 19 at Owen Funeral Home – Jeffersontown with burial at Resthaven Memorial Park in Louisville. 

Read an obituary here.