Bonnie G. Dobbins

Born December 23, 1938, in Nashville, Tennessee, Bonnie Grace Shaw was the first of seven children born to the late W. Russell Shaw and Annie Harrison Shaw.

Bonnie joined First Baptist Church, East Nashville in the late 1940s, and she remained an active member for the rest of her life.

Bonnie grew up surrounded by music as her father was a well-known musician in Nashville. She later learned to play the piano as a pre-teen, and she was also a member of the choir at Meigs and at Pearl High School, where she graduated in 1956.

After graduating from Pearl, Bonnie enrolled in Tennessee State University but put her education on hold and began a family. In 1957, Bonnie Grace Shaw married Wesley Morgan Dobbins, Sr., and to this union were born two children, Bonita Denese and Wesley Morgan, Jr.

Bonnie worked for a few years before a group of women decided she needed to continue her education and sponsored her efforts. She re-enrolled at Tennessee State and later transferred to David Lipscomb College, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education. A lifelong learner, Bonnie also earned a Bachelor of Theology in 2006 from American Baptist College, after she retired from a more than 30-year career as an educator.

It was in the halls of Hattie R. Cotton Elementary School that Bonnie became widely known as Mrs. Dobbins. In all of her years as a teacher, Mrs. Dobbins taught only first grade and taught more than 600 students, including seven nieces and nephews and two great-nieces. Among her teaching accolades is the 1982 Metro Nashville Teacher of the Year award, which enabled her to participate in the statewide Teacher of the Year program the following year. Mrs. Dobbins retired at the end of the 2002-2003 school year, and the school recognized her years of service by naming the parent center in her honor. Thanks to social media, she was blessed to keep in touch with many of her former students all around the world.

Retirement from Hattie Cotton did not mean Mrs. Dobbins stopped teaching. If teaching first grade was her day job, her weekend job was teaching songs of Zion to countless children at First Baptist, East Nashville, a role she began in 1964. She also taught the primary Sunday school class for more than 30 years. Mrs. Dobbins’ work at First Baptist was not only with the children, as she became an ordained deacon in 1998. Two years later, in 2000, Deacon Dobbins was licensed to preach, and in 2003, she was ordained as Reverend Dobbins. From November 2013 until April 2015, Reverend Dobbins served as Interim Pastor of First Baptist Church, East Nashville. For the past several years, Rev. Dobbins served as the assistant pastor at First Baptist, and for the past few years, she had a standing fifth Sunday preaching assignment.

Reverend Dobbins was an active member of several organizations, including the Metropolitan Nashville Retired Teachers Association, Church Women United, and the National Consortium of Black Women in Ministry.