Furniss Harkness

A native of Memphis,Tennessee and a graduate ofHillcrest High School (1970)and the University of Mem-phis (1974). Following grad-uation from Vanderbilt Di-vinity School (1978), he pas-tored churches in Tennesseeand Florida. In March of1987 he entered the UnitedStates Navy, spending eight and one-half yearson active duty. Returning to Naval Reserves inthe summer of 1995, he accepted an invitation tobecome senior minister of Bethany ChristianChurch in Eads, Tennessee. Mr. Harkness retiredfrom the Naval Reserves in 2014 and the churchin 2019.In retirement he has remained active in church-work, continued keeping bees, and worked as aMaster Gardener with Memphis Area MasterGardeners (MAMG). In addition to being in-volved in the Memphis Area Beekeepers Associ-ation (MABA), most recently he served as VicePresident, West Area, Tennessee Beekeepers As-sociation (TBA), assisting in the planning andexecution of the 2023 TBA annual conferenceentitled Keeping Bees-ALIVE!.Furniss Harkness has been married to the formerDonna Sturtevant, a retired professor of clinicallaw at the University of Memphis, for forty-sixyears. They have two daughters, Marian andMelissa, both of whom live in Los Angeles, Cali-fornia.