Todd Jenkins - Bud Jenkins

Proving Them Wrong

Todd Jenkins Honors His Father, Bud Jenkins

About This Story

As a young man, Bud Jenkins was told he wasn't college material. Too stubborn. Too hardheaded. Unlikely to succeed. Those words followed him for the rest of his life—not as a burden, but as fuel.

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Photographs

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Bud Jenkins with son Todd

More to Explore

Selected Poems by Todd Jenkins

Crossing

Write

Books

Tuesday's Muse: Visual & Verbal Appetizers for the Great Banquet of Your Life

Tuesday’s Muse is a collection of poems by Todd Jenkins pointing to the extraordinariness of our daily lives. Each poem is accompanied by a photograph and brief scripture passage, allowing the reader to receive visual, verbal, and scriptural reflections on life.

Tuesday's Muse 2: More Fuel for the Fire and Passion for Your Life

Poetry and prayer have a number of things in common. Both push language to its limits in an attempt to describe the expanse of the human condition, as well as articulate our earthly perspective on divine-human interface. Tuesday’s Muse 2 is an invitation for readers to join their own stories with those of the community of faith.

Legacy Stories - Related Info

OUR AMERICAN FAMILY

The Our American Family public television docuseries is the inspiration for Legacy Stories. As a thank-you during the launch of Legacy Stories, all eight Our American Family documentaries are available here for free viewing.

ATLAS - KARLIJN LANGENDIJK

Karlijn Langendijk is a Dutch guitarist and composer known for her melodic imagination and genre-blending acoustic style. Her composition, Atlas, has been chosen as the theme music for Legacy Stories.

Proving Them Wrong

Todd Jenkins Honors His Father Bud Jenkins

Some people spend their lives running toward a dream. Bud Jenkins spent much of his life running away from a verdict.

As a teenager, he was told by his parents that college wasn't for him. When he graduated from high school, they refused to help pay for college because they believed he would fail.

Bud refused to accept that judgment.He joined the Navy, served during the Korean conflict, returned home, and used the GI Bill to earn a college degree. Teacher. Coach. Principal. Superintendent. Eventually, a doctorate in education. Each achievement seemed to answer the same accusation: You said I couldn't. Watch me.

His son Todd watched that determination play out throughout his life and modeled it.

One chapter stood out above all the others. As a superintendent in Georgia, Bud found himself leading a school district through desegregation. The backlash was fierce. Threats were made. One morning Todd came downstairs and found his father asleep in a recliner beside the front window with a pistol in his lap. Someone had called the night before and threatened to burn the family home. Bud had spent the night waiting.

Eventually the controversy cost Bud his position. Even that did not stop him.

Looking back, Todd sees how deeply that perseverance shaped him. Yet he also learned something his father's life helped teach him: there is a difference between spending your life proving people wrong and spending your life answering a calling. And that is why Todd has been a pastor these past 36 years.

Today, after decades in ministry, Todd still wishes he could sit down with his father and share the stories that followed.

Bud Jenkins, the boy who was told he could never succeed, left behind a legacy far greater than accomplishments. He left behind generations who learned never to let someone else's limitations define them.

Listen to Todd’s full conversation ↑