Gulf Breeze UMC pastor dies at age 89

Rucker

Driftwood H. "Drifty" Rucker died early Monday morning. He served Gulf Breeze United Methodist Church (GBUMC) as an associate pastor for many years.

Rucker served the Alabama/ West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church from 1949-1982. In 1982 he "retired" from the ministry and moved to Gulf Breeze.

Once in Gulf Breeze, he took on the duties of Associate Minister to the Rev. Dr. Herb Sadler for seven years. In 1989, Rucker "retired" again only to step in again and again to fill the gaps taken by vacationing clergy, to visit patients in hospitals and assist in worship.for many more years. He was also the chaplain at the Veterans Administration Hospital and Domiciliary in Johnson City, Tenn.

"Drifty and I worked together for a lot of years," remembers Sadler. "He retired and he kept coming back. No body could touch him for pastoral visitation. He was a visiting dynamo. When people went to church, and went straight home, he might have beat them there. He had a marvelous sense of humor and a beautiful spirit. Drifty was a very special man. This is a deep personal loss and a loss to the community."

A native of South Carolina, Rucker was born Jan. 6, 1918 in a Revolutionary War time home in the Sandy Run Community of Calhoun County.

He is a graduate of Wofford College and Duke University Divinity School. Between college and seminary he saw action in Normandy, France with the 263rd infantry Regiment.

His wife, Bernice Jernigan Rucker, is a native Floridian from Pensacola. She and two sons, Daniel and Hayne, survive him.

At press time, details were not available from GBUMC or Bayview Fisher-Pou Funeral Home.