Tom L. Ballinger, born in Dallas, TX, graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1954. He played professional baseball for several years before being drafted into the U.S. Army. Afterward he entered a career in business. In 1966 he, along with Murry Evans, started the Berean Chapel in Mobile, AL and began holding the annual Gulf Coast Bible Conference. 1968 he launched his periodical Plainer Words, which he published for twenty-one years. He also conducted a daily radio program, The Present Truth Broadcast, for ten years in some of the major radio markets.