The Reverend Newman Ray Board, 82, (Covenant Presbytery) of Caldwell County, Kentucky, died August 19, 2020.

Ray was born November 18, 1937, in Caldwell County, Kentucky, to William Cecil Board and Ava Lee Goodaker and raised in the Southern Baptist Church. Saved on September 11, 1949, Ray was baptized on October 10, 1949, by the Reverend H.E. Denton at the Mount Pisgah Baptist Church near Dawson Springs in Cladwell County, Kentucky, and joined the church.

He was educated in the public schools of Caldwell County and graduated from R.E. Butler High School in Princeton, Kentucky. He attended Mid-Continent Baptist Bible College in Mayfield, Kentucky, the Southern Baptist Extension School in Princeton, Kentucky, and Murray State University. In Murray, Kentucky.

Ray married Nancy Sue Tabor on May 31, 1956. They had two daughters, Rita Faye and Lydia Gaye. The couple seperated in 1977. Ray then married Mary Nell Milton Cash on August 12, 1977. She died November 17, 1997. Ray later married Vivian Kirby Paul, a member of Good Springs Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Vivian died August 27, 2015.

Ray preached his first sermon at Mount Pisgah, his home church, on August 16, 1959. A tent maker, he worked primarily in management in the lumber trade. Ray served Cedar Bluff, Donalson Creek, Suwanee Furnace, Mt. Zion, and Caldwell Springs Baptist Churches in western Kentucky before joining Woodlawn Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Paducah, Kentucky.

Ray came under the care of Mayfield Presbytery on October 7, 1978, at Vaughn’s Chapel Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Calvert City, Kentucky. He was licensed on April 12, 1980, at Bayou de Chine Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Water Valley, Kentucky. On October 25, 1981, Ray having completed the required courses, a commission of Mayfield Presbytery ordained him at Woodlawn Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The Reverend Charles Westfall preached the ordination sermon, the Reverend Paul Belt asked questions of the licentiate, and the Reverend David Lancaster delivered the charge. Ray was the first person ordained by Mayfield Presbytery following the Committee on the Ministry reorganization precipitated by the Gayle Barnes ordination controversy.

In the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Ray supplied Barbee Memorial Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Princeton Presbytery) in Princeton, Kentucky; Wheatcroft (Princeton Presbytery) in Webster County, Kentucky; Flat Rock (Princeton Presbytery) near Fredonia, Kentucky; Liberty (Princeton Presbytery) near Princeton; and Good Springs (Princeton Presbytery) at Fredonia. All of these churches are now part of Covenant Presbytery.