J. Harold Smith
J. Harold Smith was a Southern Baptist evangelist and founder of Radio Bible Hour, "broadcasting the Gospel of Jesus Christ since 1935". Smith was a pioneer in the use of broadcast media and started the Radio Bible Hour broadcast in 1935. He helped to develop Christian radio in the 1940s and was one of the first ministries to be heard nationwide through the giant Mexican radio station XERF. He was the pastor of a number of churches of various sizes and always loved the work of the pastorate. In 1953, as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas, he started televising the morning worship services. The broadcast was one of the first regular television broadcasts of a church service in the United States.
Radio Bible Hour ceased operations on December 31, 2017.
