The Golden Cross Foundation is blessed to have a committed, caring, and experienced board. We thought you might like to know a little bit about each of these talented individuals.

January 2021's profile features one of the foundation's inaugural board members, Tom Adkinson.

Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

A: After about six years when father progressed through three Associated Press Bureaus in the Carolinas and Washington, D.C., I landed in Nashville and have been here ever since, except for a few years in exile in Birmingham. My father advised me not to follow him into journalism, so I did what he told me not to do. After two newspaper jobs and five experience-filled years at Southern Living Magazine, where I became addicted to travel writing, I jumped the fence into tourism public relations, where I got to work with Roy Acuff and Minnie Pearl. I have a wonderful wife, three children scattered about (Nashville, Seattle and somewhere in China) and continue to feel younger than my driver’s license says, although my lower back and almost daily third-class mail solicitations to buy a hearing aid are a reality check.

Q: How many years have you served as a Golden Cross Foundation board member?

A: I was asked onto the McKendree Village Foundation board sometime in the last century, and I migrated on the GCF board when the foundation was created in 2013.

Q: Why are you involved in ministry with older people via serving on the Golden Cross Foundation board?

A: The idea of serving on the GCF board interested me from the start because it was an opportunity to help one good organization, the McKendree Village Foundation, help create another, more far-reaching, organization.

Q: How has God blessed you while serving on the board?

A: I can count two blessings very quickly. One is being introduced to so many dedicated and interesting people whom I would not have met otherwise. The other is learning about the many ways congregations are serving older adults in need.

Q: What hopes or dreams do you have for the Golden Cross Foundation over the next year? In the next few years?

A: In 2021, I hope the GCF can help many congregations as they come out of the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic exposed many challenges for churches (and society) and simultaneously illuminated ways to help. Long term, I hope the foundation can show senior parishioners how they themselves can remain active and contributing members of their congregations and communities.

Q: What’s one little known fact about you?

A: Outside of that alien abduction, I’m an open book.

Tom Adkinson, is retired PR professional, occasional feature writer, fisherman, and not a golfer.