Deborah Loftis

LOFTIS, Deborah Carlton. b. Richmond, Virginia, 7 November 1951. Loftis grew up in a family that sang together. Although neither of her parents had formal musical training, she learned her first songs on the piano from her father. Once in school, she took piano lessons and sang in school and church choirs. While reared in the Southern Baptist church and ordained as a Southern Baptist minister in 1983, when that denomination underwent changes in the last decades of the 20th century, her affiliation shifted to the American Baptist Church, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and the Alliance of Baptists. Loftis graduated from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1974, with a BA in...