Giving Back in Longtime Chairperson's Blood
March 12, 2025
Tony Kerr has been the chairperson of the Russell County Community Blood Drive for more than 40 years.
For 40-plus years, Tony has been the man behind the scenes setting up the now-monthly drive at various locations in Russell County. Month after month, year after year, he’s worked to set up the logistics with Kentucky Blood Center, to promote the blood drive to people in the community, and to get donors on beds to give blood.
Four decades later, the heart helping pump blood out of Russell County to local patients across Kentucky has rarely slowed down to think about the tens of thousands of lives he’s impacted.
“Life goes by so quickly,” Tony said. “When donations are getting low, I think about the need to do something. We need to make sure our people know. We need to get as many people out as we can because there are so many people out there who are going to be using this blood who we will never see and who we will never know. We just know that there is a need.”
Public service is at the core of Tony’s day-to-day duties as the Russell County circuit court clerk, but there is more to this elected official of 31 years than the moral sense of responsibility his position carries. Helping people is in his blood.
Years before Tony was born, his mother had complications while giving birth to his older sister at Adair County Hospital in Columbia. Tony’s mother needed blood, but she had a rare type that wasn’t readily available.
In a dire situation, word got to WAIN in Columbia, the first FM radio station in the area, which sent an emergency appeal asking for a specific type of blood.
One person showed up and asked, “Is that for a white woman?”
The man asking the question was black, and the time was 1962. Russell County was segregated like much of the country, and black people were not given the same freedoms as white people. The willing donor had previously been turned down from donating.
“I will give it if you will take it,” the man said.
The hospital took it, and it saved Tony’s mother’s life.
“I never forgot that,” Tony said. “I never forgot about a man who was probably one of the most disenfranchised persons in this country coming forward to help save a woman’s life.”
“I always feel God gave me life, God gives me everything, and the blood that flows through my veins is God-given,” Tony said. “Who am I not to give it to someone who needs it? God wants us to do that. If I’m healthy and able to do that, then I’m going to do that. I feel that I have to do that. And it’s a very small thing for me to donate blood compared to what some of these people are facing. I think about cancer patients. If you ever go to the cancer center, you see children. The fact that I’m going to have a needle stick in my arm and be there a few minutes, it’s a drop in the bucket to what these people have to face.”
The Russell County Community drive has grown and evolved under Tony’s leadership. When it started in August 1984 at a local vocational school, a couple dozen donors showed up.
Now, the drive is held on the final Thursday of each month at the South Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation in Jamestown. Thanks to Tony’s relationships in the community, his persistence in educating others about the need and his commitment to KBC, the drive routinely draws 40-50 donors a month. Tony has even beefed up his persuasive tactics by securing local sponsors to donate gift cards for donors who need that extra nudge.
“Being consistent with it is the key,” Tony said. “People can plan on it when they know when these drives are. They work their schedules around them, a lot of them. For a regular donation, you can donate every 56 days. Every other month, I see so many of the same faces that are coming back. I’m extremely proud of Russell County and its citizens who come out. We still recruit new people too. We still have people who move in, and we want to let them know that they can give blood and what we are doing. We’re constantly going to need new faces. We’re going to need new blood, so to speak.”
Tony iterates that the time he’s given to grow the Russell County Community Blood Drive is a blessing for him. He’s met and made friends with countless people over the years. It’s their commitment to these blood drives that has ensured blood is on the shelves for future mothers like Tony’s and so many more.
“This blood stays home,” Tony said. “This blood serves this area. This blood serves our hospital. It serves our neighbors.”
