LAMBUTH UNIVERSITY HOSTS RETIREMENT RECEPTION 

FOR DR. GENE DAVENPORT

Jackson, Tennessee, April 15, 2008: 

Lambuth University will host a retirement reception for Dr. Gene Davenport on April 30 from 4-6 p.m. in the Jack Morris Ballroom, inside the Wilder Union Building on the Lambuth campus.  The community is cordially invited to attend. 

Dr. Gene Davenport received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Birmingham-Southern and both Bachelor of Divinity and Ph.D. in Religion from Vanderbilt University. He also took Graduate work in Education for the Mentally Retarded at the University of Memphis (then Memphis State University). He joined the Lambuth University (then Lambuth College) faculty in 1963, where he currently serves as a Professor of Religion and Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy, and also served as Chaplain for a year in the 1980s. Additionally, he serves as the Chair of the Steering Committee for the Lambuth B'nai Israel Center for Jewish Studies.

 

Besides his work at Lambuth, Dr. Davenport is a certified teacher for Christian Education with developmentally disabled children and adults; a laboratory school leader for church school teachers of developmentally disabled children and adults in several annual conferences and at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina; and a Director of Camps for developmentally disabled children and adults within the Memphis Annual Conference. He is also former President of the Jackson Chapter of Association for Retarded Citizens, and was a Client Advocate with E.A.C.H (Effective Advocacy for Citizens with Handicaps) in the 1980s. 

In addition to his work as an educator, Dr. Davenport is an ordained Deacon and Elder in the United Methodist Church, having served as part-time pastor in churches in North Alabama, Tennessee and Memphis Annual Conferences. He has served in various offices in the North Alabama Conference Methodist Youth Fellowship; was President of the National Methodist Youth Fellowship Commission, and has been a Director of Camps for Senior Highs at the Memphis Annual Conference. He has also served as Wesley Foundation Director at Middle Tennessee State College (now Middle Tennessee State University) and as Bible Study Leader at the Annual meeting of United Methodist Church's Board of Global Ministries and at the Southeastern Jurisdiction Laymen's Assembly.

 

In the scholarly field, he is the author of several books and numerous articles, is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and is a participant in the biannual Seminar on Enoch Literature. He is a commissioner on the Tennessee Holocaust Commission and is a member of the Internal Review Board for West Tennessee Health Care. 

 

Dr. Davenport is the author of numerous articles, lessons, and lesson guides for United Methodist Church curriculum for all age levels and of several books, including What's the Church For?; King Jesus: Savior, Lord, Soul Brother; The Eschatology of the Book of Jubilees; Into the Darkness, and Powers and Principalities. He writes a regular column in The Jackson Sun. For four years he hosted the weekly interview program, "A Closer Look" on WTJS-AM 1390. 

 

Dr. Davenport is also a well-known performer and writer of Western Music. He could be heard in performance at the Old Country Store each weekend for seven years in the 1990s and has performed at Silver Dollar City, Western Music Association Festivals, and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, among others, both as a soloist and with back-up groups. He is a founding member of the western music group O.K. Chorale, and in the 1990s, he hosted a weekly radio program of old time country music and western music on WTNV-FM in Jackson. He has lectured on various western music topics at the Western Music Association Festival and at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. He has two daughters and nine grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. 

Lambuth University is affiliated with the United Methodist church, and was founded in 1843. In the ensuing years, Lambuth has earned a reputation as one of the South's premier liberal arts universities, and has received national recognition as one of the nation's Top 250 Liberal Arts Colleges by U.S. News & World Report, and as one of the nation's "Top 100 Outstanding Colleges" by The Washington Post.