OBU Presents Hobbs Award to Manner at SBC Annual Meeting

June 14, 2021

OBU presented the Herschel H. Hobbs Award for Distinguished Denominational Service to Dr. David Manner during the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, June 14. Manner is an OBU alumnus and serves as the executive director for the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists (KNCSB). OBU President Dr. Heath A. Thomas presented the award to Manner following a panel discussion at the OBU booth at the SBC Annual Meeting.

The award is named to honor the noteworthy Southern Baptist denominational service of Dr. Herschel H. Hobbs, a prolific author, preacher and radio program host. Hobbs was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City from 1949-72. He died in 1995. He is also the namesake of OBU’s Herschel H. Hobbs School of Theology and Ministry.

Previous winners and their positions of service at the time they received the Hobbs Award include K. Marshall Williams Sr., senior pastor of Nazarene Baptist Church of Philadelphia; Dr. Juan Sanchez, senior pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas; Dr. Anthony Jordan, executive director-treasurer of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma; Dr. Jeff Iorg, president of Gateway Seminary; Dr. Rebekah Naylor, former IMB missionary; Dr. Tom Elliff, former president of the IMB; Robert Kellogg, president and CEO of the Baptist Foundation of Oklahoma; Dr. David S. Dockery, former president of Union University and chancellor of Trinity International University; Dr. O.S. Hawkins, president of GuideStone Financial Resources; and Dr. Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Manner joined the KNCSB as its director of worship and administration in 2000 and moved into the role of associate state executive director in 2012. Before joining the convention staff in 2000, he served for 20 years in music and worship ministry with congregations in Kansas, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. A native of Ardmore, Oklahoma, he and his wife Karen, a school teacher, have been married for 40 years and have one adult daughter and son-in-law, Jessa and Cullen Swearingen.

He earned a Bachelor of Music from OBU, a Master of Church Music from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Worship Studies from the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. He has led worship and leadership conferences for numerous conventions, churches and educational institutions and writes for various online and print publications. He recently released “Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship.”