| Bishop Blackburn dies at 82
By United Methodist News Service
Retired United Methodist Bishop Robert M.
Blackburn, who led the church’s Raleigh, N.C., and Richmond, Va.,
areas, has died following complications from open-heart surgery. He
was 82.
Blackburn died March 17, according to the
Council of Bishops’ office. He had undergone surgery March 7 at
Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., and died there.
The son and grandson of Methodist ministers,
Blackburn served at local churches in Florida for 29 years before
being elected bishop in 1972.
He led the denomination’s Raleigh Area from
1972 to 1980, then served the Richmond Area until his retirement in
1988.
Blackburn served on the boards of several
general church agencies: the General Council on Finance and
Administration, the Board of Higher Education and Ministry, the Board
of Church and Society and the Commission on the Status and Role of
Women. He also served as a trustee for more than a half-dozen United
Methodist schools.
Blackburn was born Sept. 12, 1919, in Bartow,
Fla., the son of the Rev. C. Fred and Effie Frances Forsythe
Blackburn.
After graduating from high school in Orlando, he
earned his bachelor of arts degree from Florida Southern College in
Lakeland in 1941, followed by his master of divinity degree from
Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta in 1943.
Florida Southern presented him with the school’s Distinguished
Alumnus Award in 1973.
Ordained a deacon in 1943 and an elder in 1944,
Blackburn went on to lead Florida congregations for nearly three
decades, a tenure broken only by his stint as an Army chaplain from
1944 to 1946. At the time of his election as bishop in 1972, he was
leading First United Methodist Church, Orlando.
Funeral services were held March 19 at First
United Methodist Church, Jacksonville.
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