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Frank Claiborne
Rev. Frank Claiborne is a native Missourian. He enlisted in the U. S. Navy in 1943, serving his country faithfully for three years. He saw combat in WWII when the United States defeated the Japanese and gained control of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) in the Pacific Ocean. Following a brief assignment to the Gilbert Islands, another important battlefield during WWII, he returned to the RMI where he remained until the end of the War. When he was honorably discharged in October 1946, he returned to his hometown of Nevada, Missouri.
Both Rev. Claiborne and his wife, Ida Vee, attended Southwest Baptist College. Rev. Claiborne received an associate of arts degree from Southwest Baptist College in 1949. Also, he earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1951 from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and a bachelor of divinity degree from Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1956.
Rev. Claiborne was ordained in 1948 by the Pine Street Baptist Church in Nevada, Missouri. During the years that Rev. Claiborne was attending college and seminary, he pastored churches in Missouri and Arkansas. From 1966-1970, he was the director of missions for Linn-Livingston Baptist Association in Missouri. Rev. Claiborne and his wife served as career missionaries in the metropolitan missions division of the Home Mission Board (HMB) in Topeka, Kansas, from 1970 until their retirement (due to health conditions) from the HMB in 1989.
The ministry of Frank and Ida Vee Claiborne spans 40 years of active involvement in various roles in the church and on the mission field. During the four decades that they have served in Christian ministry, Rev. and Mrs. Claiborne have helped start 40 churches in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska.
The Claibornes have been married for nearly 60 years. They have three children: Cynthia Compton of Appleton City; Paul Claiborne of Macon; and Tim Claiborne of Topeka, Kansas. Rev. and Mrs. Claiborne also have eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.