If you need help of any kind, Randy Davis is the man to whom many locals turn.
Ask Davis about the work he has done throughout his life as a teacher, volunteer in Southern Baptist missions and the Wesson and state Lions Club or as a pastor, Davis answers simply: "I like helping people."
Davis, who grew up four miles from Wesson in Lincoln County, attended school for the most part in Wesson, but graduated from Loyd Star High School in 1972 after Wesson High School left Co-Lin to become part of the Copiah County School District. Davis remembers watching the construction of Interstate 55 as a kid a quarter mile from his house. His father operated a nearby Shell service station, where he worked when he was ten years old. He had three brothers and three sisters, played Little League baseball and was in his high school band.
After graduating from high school, he studied biology and mathematics at Co-Lin, where he also met and married the former Suzanne Cliett form Hazlehurst, who has accompanied him throughout his life, including to his next stop at Delta State University, where he completed his undergraduate and in mathematics education.
He started his career as a helper as a math teacher at Yazoo City High School from 1976-78, and then came back to Wesson, where he taught high school math for 24 years, along the way earning a Master's Degree in Education at the University of Southern Mississippi before retiring in 2002 to pursue the professional ministry.
"I was active in Wesson Baptist Church (WBC) and had worked in voluntary missions during the summers when I taught school," Davis says. "The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. had a profound impact on me, and I made a deeper commitment to ministry. God showed me what was really important and called me to step up."
As a Deacon at WBC, Davis taught Sunday school and was involved in men's ministry. In the summer of 1974, he worked with backyard Bible clubs, vacation Bible schools, puppet ministries and families in the Northwest. He worked at the Green Meadows Church at New Kingstown, Rhode Island, in the summers of 1975 and 1976, where he not only worked in the wider ministry of the church, but became a Boston Red Sox fan as well. He also with the Southern Baptist Nailbenders volunteers to help build church buildings for congregations who lacked funds for construction workers.
Davis landed in a professional pastorate in Hazlehurst at Damascus Baptist Church in 2003, where he worked for 17 years before retiring last year. From 2008-18, he also taught math part time at the Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven.
Another part of Davis' helping life started in 1981, when he joined Wesson Lions Club, which supports varied charities throughout the area, while working with its state, national and international organizations on its own specialty services, which have traditional revolved around care for the sight-impaired. "'We serve' is our slogan," Davis says. He is now starting his third term as president of the local club. He first served as Wesson Lions Club president in 1986 and again in the early years of the new millennium. At the state level, Davis has also served as Lions zone chairperson, Vice District Governor and District Governor.
Davis and his wife Suzanne have three grown children -- Jon, 43, who serves with the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, parish Sheriff; Katie Willis, 40, a housewife who home schools her children and Elizabeth Davis, 37, who works for an eye doctor in Chattanooga. They have four grandchildren -- Symon Davis, 18, Maxx Davis, 15, Cassandra Willis, 14, and Tara Willis, 11.
What are your hobbies? You could consider the Lions Club a hobby, although I consider it a calling. I listen to music, read, have been a Boston Red Sox fan since 1975. Suzanne and I enjoy day trips to historical places and spots of interest.
What do you read? I am into non-fiction Christian writers -- Max Lucado and Rick Warren.
What kind of music do you like?
I like the music of the 60s, 70s and 80s. I am also frustrated guitarist, who couldn't make my fingers move the right way. So played percussion instruments in high school and college bands -- bass drums, cowbells, cymbals, anything.
Do you enjoy movies or theater?
I have done a little acting -- dinner theater, Brookhaven Little Theater. I played in Inherit the Wind and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. In enjoy comedies with George Clooney and Mel Gibson, Sci-Fi and Marvel movies.
What would you do with lottery winnings if you were so lucky? I would pay my debts, give to the church and non-profits and travel.
How would you change the world? I would invite people to join the Lions Club to focus on others and not themselves.
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