Hall of Fame
Dr. Gene Lasley played football and ran track for the Bobcats.
He was a guard and was named all-american and all-state on the 1951 state championship team. It could be said that Dr. Lasley was the top player in the state that season, because he was the only one from Mississippi to be named All-American.
Lasley ran on the Jones mile relay team which won the state meet and he also ran the 100-yard dash and threw the shot put.
After JCJC, he attended Mississippi Southern College (University of Southern Mississippi) and was a starting guard on the 1952 football team that participated in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas.
Dr. Lasley left USM and went to Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1954, his master’s in 1956 and an honorary doctorate in 1976. He then attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He served five years as Youth for Christ director in the states of Illinois and Washington.
Dr. Lasley would serve as pastor of Buffalo Ridge Baptist Church in Gray, Tennessee, from 1963-2009. Buffalo Ridge is the oldest church in Tennessee, having been founded in 1779.
During his ministry at Buffalo Ridge, Sunday School attendance grew from 135 in 1963 to a record 766 in 1984. The church experienced high attendance days of 1,400 and 1,500.
He served on the Ambassador Baptist College Board of Directors in Lattimore, North Carolina, for many years. The men’s dormitory at Ambassador Baptist College was named “Gene Lasley Hall” in his honor in 2009.
He also serves on the Pastoral Advisory Committee for Congressman Phil Roe in the first district of Tennessee.
After his retirement, Dr. Lasley has remained active in preaching at local Baptist churches and teaching in Bible colleges.
Dr. Lasley is married to Ellen Lasley.
