Portrait of Ken Cooper. IMB Photo

Alvis Kenneth “Ken” Cooper, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, died March 27, 2024, in New Albany, Mississippi. He was 87.  

Ken was born May 16, 1936, in Saltillo, Mississippi, to the late Audie Franklin Cooper and Sally Addis Bush. He received the Bachelor of Arts from Blue Mountain College, Blue Mountain, Mississippi; the Master of Social Science from University of Mississippi, Oxford; the Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary; and the Doctor of Ministry degree from International Seminary, Plymouth, Florida. 

Ken served in the United States Air Force from 1955 until his retirement in 1975. He married his childhood sweetheart, Martha Ann McIlwain, on May 6, 1957. In 1958, Ken came to faith in Christ and felt called to preach the gospel. A year later during an assignment to Guam, Ken and Martha helped start the first Southern Baptist church on the island. The Air Force took them to many different countries, but this was their first experience with foreign missions.  

“In each place we were able to serve God as missionaries,” Ken wrote when the Coopers sought appointment with the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board), “God was the sender; the Air Force was the means.”  

After his retirement from the Air Force, Ken was pastor of numerous churches in Mississippi before he and Martha felt led to seek appointment as foreign missionaries. 

 In 1990, the International Mission Board appointed Ken and Martha Cooper missionaries to Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Ken served as pastor, teacher and counselor in English-language ministry and outreach at a church in the region. He later served as pastor of International Baptist Church of Munich.  

Ken was preceded in death by Martha, his wife of 54 years; and Bonnie, his wife of 9 years. 

He is survived by daughter, Melody Littlejohn (Rickey); son, Marty Cooper; four grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and one sister, Martilla Croft. 

A funeral service was held March 30 at the Tupelo chapel of Pegues Funeral Directors, Tupelo, Mississippi, with burial in Temperance Hill Cemetery in Potts Camp, Mississippi. 

 Read an obituary here.