Cameron Byler, 79, a pioneer in Southern Baptist disaster relief work and men’s missions, died April 28 at a hospital near his home in San Antonio, Texas.

Byler served as director of Baptist Men and national coordinator of disaster relief for the former Southern Baptist Convention Brotherhood Commission, based in Memphis, Tenn., from 1985-89. He also served as state disaster relief director in Tennessee from 1989 until his retirement in 1995. He was the first national coordinator of Southern Baptist disaster relief who helped negotiate the first agreement between Southern Baptists and the American Red Cross for a cooperative response to U.S. disasters, said one of his successors in disaster relief at the national level, Mickey Caison.

When Hurricane Beulah struck Texas in 1967, Byler and fellow Texas Baptist Bob Dixon became the SBC’s first-ever disaster relief team, serving food prepared on “buddy-burners” from the back of a pickup truck in the wake of the Category 5 hurricane that killed 58 Texans.

Jim Hamilton, executive director-treasurer of the Dakota Baptist Convention, will be nominated for second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, a pastor in Rapid City, S.D., announced April 24.

Fred MacDonald, senior pastor of Westside Baptist Church in Rapid City, said he will nominate Hamilton during the SBC’s June 10-11 meeting.