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Eric
Bluntson: Carrying a Legacy Forward
 For
Shoestring Board member and president-elect Eric Bluntson,
service is a family affair. Always has been, always will.
It
started with his parents: Frank, now a Jackson city council
member, and Juanita, a retired elementary school principal
(who once taught Shoestring staffer Naomi Carter, featured
in our last newsletter). It continued with the brother Eric
cites as his role model, the late Craig Bluntson. Craig's
untimely death in 2000 shocked the city he called home,
but Eric has made it his daily mission to see to it that
his brother's legacy continues.
"Craig's
whole life was about helping people and not wanting the
credit," Eric says. "Not long after he died, some downtown
workers told me that he came by their work site on a cold
morning and brought them doughnuts and coffee. He wouldn't
tell them his name; they only learned who he was after he
died and his picture was in the paper."
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"Not
a day goes by that I don't think about him and try to govern my
life the way he did. If I follow his example, I'll be okay. Craig
did more good in his 33 years than most people do in a much longer
lifetime."
Eric
and his family are honoring Craig's memory by giving some of Jackson's
elder residents a happier holiday season. Each year they organize
the WKXI-WOAD Craig D. Bluntson Senior Citizen's Food Drive, which
provides meals throughout the holidays for more than 500 older
residents between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Eric
currently works at BankPlus as vice-president of commercial
lending.
He graduated from St. Andrew's in 1988 and received his undergraduate
and MBA degrees from Ole Miss. In addition
to his banking career and his volunteer work, in the fall Eric
works as a referee at high school football games; he hopes
to
follow in his father's footsteps and officiate games at the college
level and possibly even the NFL. "I ref some of the same kids
who came up through Shoestring," Eric says.
Eric's
passion for kids also shows up in his mentoring of his brother
Craig's son, seven-year-old Connor, and also in his work with
Operation Shoestring.
"My
mom grew up on Bailey Avenue, and she used to tell me how important
Shoestring was to this neighborhood," Eric recalls. "A community
is only as strong as its most vulnerable parts. We're doing what
we can to help strengthen families and help these children build
their futures."
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