Earl Gene Goatcher, a foreign missionary who also supported the medical missions programs of Texas Baptists’ River Ministry, died Feb. 7. He was 94. He was born Aug. 2, 1928, near Formosa in Van Buren County, Ark., to James M. and Ruth Allen Goatcher. He served in the Armed Forces during the Korean War. Goatcher graduated from the University of Arkansas and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and completed the administrative residency program of Arkansas Baptist Hospital in Little Rock. In 1957, he married Dr. Joann Horton, the chief resident in pediatrics at the University of Arkansas Medical School. In 1962, the Goatchers were appointed as medical missionaries to Thailand by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Foreign Mission Board. During more than 22 years with the FMB, they ministered in more than 30 countries on four continents. Their missionary service began in Thailand, where he worked as a hospital administrator. After nine years in Thailand, they returned to the United States for a few years, when he served as administrator of a hospital in Van Horn. During that time, he helped with River Ministry medical programs along the Rio Grande, which his wife directed. In 1979, the Goatchers were asked to return to Thailand, where he directed the FMB response to the hundreds of thousands of Indochina refugees pouring into Thailand. That response entailed providing food, fuel, water and other services to 45,000 refugees daily, including complete medical services in a camp of 22,000. At the same time, he joined the board of directors of Bangalore Baptist Hospital in Bangalore, India, serving 11 years during which he served twice as chairman of the board and twice as interim administrator. When the Indochina refugee crisis subsided, he became director of refugee response and disaster relief in Southeast Asia for the FMB, initiating and monitoring health care and agriculture development projects in the region. In 1983, he became administrator of the Thailand Baptist Mission. In 1987, he joined the FMB administrative staff in Richmond, Va., monitoring and evaluating health care, refugee response and agriculture development projects on a worldwide basis. After retirement to Clinton, Ark., he served 12 years on the board of Ozark Health Medical Center in Clinton. He also served on the board of the Arkansas Hospital Association and served two years as president of the Arkansas Association of Hospital Trustees. He also served four years as pastor of Formosa Baptist Church. In 2012, the Goatchers moved to the Parkway Village Retirement Center in Little Rock, where they became active members of Immanuel Baptist Church. He was preceded in death by his older brother, Truett. He is survived by his wife of more than 65 years, Dr. Joann Horton Goatcher; children, Lisa Schuttger and James Goatcher; sister, Lavelle Rollins; eight grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.
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