Bill Beeny (July 1, 1926 – January 19, 2022) was a Baptist minister and self-declared segregationist who led organizations in St. Louis, Missouri, during the 1960s. More recently he had worked to popularize his theory that the American singer Elvis Presley was still living. Early years Beeny, whose father died when he was nine years old, was one of five children. During his late teens and early twenties, he worked as a tavern porter and manager in Eldorado, Illinois, the hometown of the woman he married at age eighteen. Beeny battled recurrent tuberculosis as a young man; during one painful recuperation, as he later explained, he "got disgusted with my life and was converted to the Christian faith." He was ordained by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1947, and during the 1950s he attended Shurtleff College in Alton, Illinois and the American Divinity School in Chicago, Illinois. Political and ministerial career Over the course of the 1950s and 1960s, Beeny based himself in St. Louis, where he was active in domestic anti-communist campaigns and led local and national efforts directed against civil-rights and student-movement leaders. In 1961, Beeny picketed Washington University in St. Louis, urging the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities to investigate his allegations of communist "infiltration" among university faculty – especially those who had signed a nuclear-test-ban petition organized by California chemist and Nobel laureate Linus Pauling. He also participated in national petition drives urging the Committee to investigate the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Black Panthers. Beeny's political and religious radio broadcasts, which began with one station in Alton, Illinois, were eventually heard on dozens of stations across the country. At the same time, the minister operated an "anti-communist" youth ranch in Wright City, Missouri; the ranch, according to Beeny's claim, drew upwards of 1,500 campers per summer during the early 1960s. Beeny faced constant legal problems over questionable financial practices at his Missouri Youth Ranch and his Denver-area radio station "The Voice of Reason." In 1960, accusations of marital infidelity forced Beeny from his position as pastor of the New Testament Baptist Church, which he had founded in a St. Louis storefront five years earlier. Lawsuits over an allegedly fraudulent bond issue to finance his ranch and broadcasting operations soon followed. After his resignation, Beeny took up the pastorship of the St. Louis Baptist Temple, a position he would hold until 1969. Beeny organized