Bill Keith graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois with a bachelor of arts degree in journalism. He went on to study at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Keith worked for the Shreveport Times as an investigative reporter and then went on to become city editor at the %iShreveport Journal. During his time as a journalist he also served as a war correspondent in Vietnam and as a freelance writer in West Berlin, Tokyo, and the Philippines.