Jerry B. Townsend, born in 1950, is a native of Oxford, Miss. Among the highest points in his life was obeying the Gospel at the Rivers Hill Church of Christ as a teenager. Townsend attended the University of Mississippi and then entered the U.S. Airforce (USAF) in 1970, where he served for 7 years, working as an aircraft mechanic and non-destructive testing specialist. He was honorably discharged in 1977 and returned to Oxford and UM where he graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1979. After graduating, Townsend returned to the USAF as a second Lieutenant where he served as a management analyst, budget officer and computer systems analyst. He retired from the USAF in Montgomery, Ala., in 1994 and since then has worked as an IT consultant. Townsend also served as minister at the Mount Meigs Church of Christ in Montgomery for 19 years. He returned to Oxford in 2017, where he currently lives and continued to work as an IT consultant until July 2021. Townsend also served as interim minister at the Rivers Hill Church of Christ from September 2020 to November 2022. He is married to Genell Howard Townsend and they have two sons and six grandchildren.