The Rev. Dr. David Lee Bluford is truly one of a kind. He rides his Harley Davidson Whiskey Amber “Hawg” to work when Mother Nature cooperates, 45 miles down I-40 East from his Jefferson County home, hitting the road at 4:30 a.m. He works at Parkwest Medical Center and is its chaplain and director of guest services.
And when he does ride it to work on Wednesdays, as he did yesterday, he also rides it to Fox Den Country Club for the weekly meetings of the Rotary Club of Farragut. Bluford is in his third week as the 2021-2022 president of the club. He’s also the club’s longtime unofficial chaplain, opening the meetings with an invocation.
The Rev. David Buford
Bluford, 66, joined Farragut Rotary on Feb. 2, 2000, and has held various positions within the club in his 21 years as a Rotarian.
For two decades he was a high school football official. Graduate of Lenoir City High School and Carson-Newman College, he was called to the ministry before his high school senior year. His motorcycling life began at the age of 15 in Lenoir City. He’s handy, too, enjoying home improvement projects, tinkering with cars and cycles and traveling with wife Mary. They have four children and four grandchildren.
At his first meeting with the gavel, he said one of his primary focus areas as president will be expanding the club’s membership of 85. “If every member can sponsor a new member this year we’d be able to do so much more than what we do now in our local community projects and internationally,” he said.
Bluford earned his doctorate in ministry and his master’s in divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and his undergraduate degree from Carson-Newman College (class of 1976). He is a board-certified chaplain, has served as president of the Tennessee Pastoral Care Association and was honored with the Meritorious Service Award from the Tennessee Hospital Association in 2003.
After graduation from Carson-Newman, he moved to Memphis to begin a clinical training residency at the Memphis Institute of Medicine and Religion, serving at Baptist Memorial Hospital. He became staff chaplain at Baptist Memorial before coming to Parkwest in 1990.
“Rotary has proved to be a wonderful resource and outlet for connecting with local individuals who care about and are involved in the West Knoxville and Farragut community. Behind all that Rotary does is the theme of service – service with others, providing needs to enable the community and world to better understand others and enhance relationships along with making a difference in persons’ lives all around the world,” Bluford says. “This year’s Rotary International president’s theme is ‘Serve to Change Lives’ and that reflects a core principle for me in my life service/ministry. Thus I enjoy Rotary as it connects me with others who nurture my desire to make a difference in the lives of others within the community, society and world.”
To explore membership in the Rotary Club of Farragut, call 865-659-3562. Tom King, a past president of Farragut Rotary, has served at newspapers in Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and California and has been the editor of two newspapers.