Ron-Ron Bowie - Weekly Smile

Ron-Ron Bowie has been greeting Cookeville with the same unmistakable smile for more than two decades.

A graduate of Tennessee Tech, Bowie wears many hats in the community. He is a truck driver, a husband and father, and he serves as the music director at The Bend Church. But ask those who know him, and they’ll tell you the thing they notice first is his smile.

For Bowie, that smile isn’t accidental — it’s intentional. It’s rooted in his faith and in a simple commitment to make the people he encounters feel seen, valued and loved.

More than a century ago, writer S. S. Curry captured the deeper meaning behind something as simple as a smile: “A smile is a recognition of our own individuality, a joyous realization of our identity; it manifests the attitude of our being toward our fellow men, toward life and all things. It means sympathy, love, joy, fellowship, willingness to receive as well as willingness to give that which is good.”

Some people are born greeting the world with a smile.
 Some lose their smile along the way.
 Others must learn to greet the world with one.

For all of us, smiling eventually becomes a choice.

Ron-Ron Bowie seems to be one of those people born smiling — and someone who has made a lifelong decision to keep smiling. In many ways, that alone has become a ministry.

When Bowie arrived at Tennessee Tech from Memphis in 2000, he was simply Ron Bowie, a freshman trying to figure out where he fit in.

“Everything about me getting here was a miracle,” Bowie said. “My ACT score wasn’t anything to boast about. My paperwork was late, so I arrived halfway through the first week of classes. Me in Cookeville? An actual miracle.”

Sometimes college reveals new gifts. Other times it simply gives space for the gifts we already carry to grow.

For Bowie, Cookeville became the place where that growth would happen. He brought three things with him: his smile, his drumsticks and his faith.

At a university known for engineering and science, none of those seemed to fit neatly into a major. But they would eventually shape his life and his purpose.

“The smile comes from never wanting to provoke anyone to feel unseen, unimportant or unloved,” Bowie said. “After the Lord brought me out of that dark place, I vowed I would never be the cause of anyone feeling that way.”

He knows what it feels like to be overlooked.

“There was a season in my life that I felt so alone and insignificant,” he said. “I know what it feels like to be looked at as different.”

For Bowie, a smile is simple.

“A smile means hello. It means glad to see you. It means I love you. It means I see you.”

And the joy behind it, he says, comes from faith.

“It comes from knowing that no matter what happens, God is for me. He loves me.”

One evening during his early days at Tennessee Tech, Bowie heard something that would help shape his path.

It started with music.

“I heard a choir singing at the Roaden University Center,” Bowie said with a laugh. “I didn’t hear any instruments, so I kept walking.”

Then he heard the crash of a cymbal.

Curious, he followed the sound and discovered the United Voices of Praise gospel choir.

“I told them I played drums, ran back to my dorm to get my sticks, then ran back and became the drummer from that moment.”

That night, choir leader Jonate Scales gave him a nickname that stuck.

“Jonate coined the name Ron-Ron,” Bowie said. “It spread like wildfire.”

Music had always been part of his life. His father was a drummer and served as his earliest inspiration.

“My father was one of the best. He was my standard,” Bowie said.

By the age of two, he was mimicking his father’s rhythm. By three, he was already sitting behind the drums. By fourth grade, he had his first full-size drum kit.

He eventually taught himself bass guitar as well, learning songs by ear from the radio.

Faith was just as present in his upbringing. Bowie is both the son and grandson of a preacher.

“Jesus was a daily topic in our house,” he said. “Church attendance wasn’t a choice; it was a mandate. I didn’t realize until I got older that not everyone grew up that way.”

During college, his faith deepened through involvement with Chi Alpha, where he said he saw people his own age passionately pursuing God.

But life also brought its share of hardship.

“I didn’t know I would have to bury two of my best friends,” Bowie said quietly.

Through both joy and grief, one truth remained steady for him.

“God had His hand on me.”

Over the years, music has taken Bowie to places he never expected — including the Grand Ole Opry, White Sox Stadium in Chicago, WGN Chicago and venues in Nashville.

Yet Cookeville remains home.

It’s where he met his wife, Charity Lynn, at a skating rink in 2002. The couple has now been married for 21 years. Together they have three daughters and two granddaughters.

For the past 18 years, Bowie has worked in the shipping industry as a truck driver. Alongside that work, he continues serving as band leader and music director at The Bend Church.

“I help musicians execute with zeal and excellence,” he said.

On many Sundays and Wednesdays, you can still find him behind the drums or bass — smiling.

His approach to life is rooted in Scripture, particularly Romans 12:10: “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”

“If we simply live this verse, nobody loses,” Bowie said. “I look out for you, and you look out for me.”

Anyone who knew Ron-Ron during his college days would recognize him today. The same welcoming smile. The same steady joy.

Perhaps now it’s even deeper — strengthened by experience, refined by faith and shaped by years of serving others.

Because in the end, greeting the world with a smile is a choice.

And when that choice is rooted in love, it becomes something more than a habit.

It becomes a ministry.