BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Buford Ellington was born on June 27, 1907, in Holmes County, Mississippi. After his early education in Goodman, Mississippi, he studied religion at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. While editing a newspaper in Durant, Mississippi, he met and married Catherine Cheek of Marshall County, Tennessee. After ten years of marriage he moved his family to Verona, Marshall County, Tennessee, where he bought a general store. He then spent eight years as a salesman for International Harvester in Memphis. In 1942 he bought a farm and traveled the state for the Farm Bureau Insurance System.

Ellington entered politics by working for Jim Nance McCord in his races for U.S. representative and governor, and serving as Marshall County campaign manager for Joe Ervins in 1946. In 1948 Ellington was elected to the state legislature, representing Marshall County. In 1952 he led Frank Clement’s campaign to defeat incumbent Governor Gordon Browning. After Clement was elected, Ellington became commissioner of agriculture. When Clement could not succeed himself as governor in 1958 Ellington ran, preserving the Clement-Ellington political coalition. He was elected, took office in 1959, and served until 1963.

During the 1960 Democratic primaries for president, Ellington supported Lyndon B. Johnson and served as the chairman of the 1960 Democratic National Convention. After his four-year term as governor, he sat out the 1962 race as required by the state constitution, and once again Frank Clement was elected governor. Ellington served as vice president of the Louisville-Nashville Railroad until he took a position in President Johnson’s civil rights program. He was reelected governor in 1966 and served from 1967 until 1971. Shortly after leaving the governor’s office, Ellington died while playing golf in Florida on April 3, 1972. He was buried in Lone Oak Cemetery in Lewisburg, Tennessee. (The biographical information is from Tennessee: A Political History by Phillip Langsdon)