THERON SAPP

Theron Sapp

The Man Who Broke The Drought

Theron Sapp was tired of losing to the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets. So was every other Georgia Bulldog player and fan in Georgia. For eight years throughout the entire decade of the 1950s, the Georgia Bulldogs had lost to Georgia Tech. When the 1957 game looked as if it was going to end in a tie, Sapp took matters into his own hands and nearly singlehandedly defeated a stubborn Tech team, which was determined to continue its decade long winning streak.

Theron Sapp was born on June 15, 1935 in Dublin, Georgia. His family lived in the Brewton community. His older brothers played six man football for Brewton High School in the years before World War II. One old timer, Judson Watson, said that the elder Sapps were much better football players than the younger Theron, who moved with his family to Macon in the 1940s.
Theron played left halfback for the Lanier Poets from 1950 to 1953. In his senior season as an honorable mention all state running back, Sapp, wearing jersey number 13, played in the backfield with All-American back Billy Kitchens, and two other honorable mention backs, Johnny Stallings, and Sam Vickers, all of whom led the Poets to eleven consecutive victories before losing to Grady High in the state championship game.

In the spring of 1954, Sapp dove into a swimming pool and cracked at least one of his vertebrae. His injury left his future football career in limbo. The doctors said that he would never play football again. Theron aggravated his injury that summer in the high school all star game. Georgia coach Wally Butts agreed to allow Theron to keep his scholarship and remain on the team, even if it meant that he would serve as a team manager. Sapp sat out his first season and missed most of his sophomore season after an injury relegated him to the number four spot on the fullback depth chart. In his junior year, Sapp recorded nearly six hundred yards rushing, the most by any Bulldog during the decade of the fifties. Despite Theron’s success on the ground, the team was far from successful. The Bulldogs won only two of eight games, while scoring only 86 points against their opponents who put 150 points on the scoreboard.

Theron Sapp’s day of destiny was November 30, 1957. A cold wind was howling from a cold clear sky down unto Grant Field in Atlanta. Georgia, losers of eight straight games to Tech, were made last minute favorites by Jesse Outler of the Atlanta Constitution, who changed his prognostication of the game in Saturday’s paper in predicting that Georgia would win by a score of 7 - 0. Tech was also regretting a bad year with only four victories in nine games.

Both teams battled to a scoreless draw in the first half. Georgia’s defense bent but didn’t break. The Dogs were determined to keep Tech away from their goal line. In the first series of the second half, Sapp, playing both ways, stopped a bourgeoning Tech drive at midfield by stopped Tech running back Faucette for a three yard loss. Faucette took the next handoff and fumbled. Sapp pounced on the ball to give the Dogs excellent field position right in the middle of the gridiron.

Theron Sapp went on a personal mission - take the ball and ram it down the throats of the Tech defenders. Sapp ran for one yard. On third down he carried the pigskin down to the Tech 37 for a first down. After Jimmy Orr caught a Charley Britt pass at the 28 yard line, Sapp plunged for seven yards to the 19 yard stripe. Coach Wally Butts sent the word "give the ball to Theron." Sapp ran for three yards to the 16 and a first down. Then he scampered for seven yards to the nine. Sapp picked up another first down for the Dogs with a four-yard run to the five. After carries of three yards and one yard to the Tech one yard line, Georgia quarterback Britt tried a quarterback sneak. Tech’s goal line defense bowed their backs and held Britt to no gain. Then on fourth and goal from the one, Sapp took the ball from Britt, ran to the right, and powered his way into the Tech end zone, a feat not accomplished by a Georgia player in four years. Ken Cooper tallied the extra point to put the score at 7 - 0, just what Outler had predicted.

All Georgia had to do was to hang on and victory was theirs - five agonizing minutes to go. The elusive win nearly vanished when Charlie Britt fumbled on his own 27 yard line. Once again, Theron was there to save the day. Sapp pounced on the ball, which allowed Georgia to gain one more first down as the clock dwindled down to less than two minutes. Georgia’s defense held. The drought was over. Furman Bisher, described the bedlam on the field: "Men kissed men. Women kissed women." Sapp’s teammates swarmed over their now immortal hero, whose ninety one yards on twenty three carries led the team to the oh so sweet victory. Sapp gave credit to Jimmy Orr and Ken Cooper for the blocks which allow him to gain the game winning score.



Theron Sapp improved on his 1957 season with an even more impressive performance in his senior 1958 season. He led the Dogs with 635 yards rushing with an excellent rate of 5.6 yards per carry. Georgia defeated Tech again by a score of 16 to 3. Once again, Theron bowled over Tech defenders for 103 yards to grind out a second consecutive victory over Tech. The Dogs finished the year with a record of four wins and six losses, giving them the distinction of being one the most powerful losing teams in Bulldog history by finishing third in the conference in total offense and second in rushing yards.

During his senior year, Sapp was named to the All SEC team. As the conference's second leading rusher, he won the William Jenkins Award. In post season play Sapp was named the outstanding player in the Senior Bowl and the outstanding back of the Blue Gray game. Theron Sapp was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles. Sapp played second string halfback for the Eagles from 1959 to 1962. The Eagles, with Hall of Fame quarterbacks Norm Van Brocklin and Sonny Jurgensen, defeated Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers to capture the 1960 World Championship. Theron was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1963 when he enjoyed his best season with 453 yards rushing on 104 carries. An injury ended Sapp's career after three seasons with the Steelers in 1965.

Theron Sapp’s memorable performance on Grant Field in broke Tech’s stranglehold on the Bulldogs and elevated him to a spot to the level of Georgia’s greatest immortal football players. Sapp’s number 40 jersey was retired by the university along with three other great Bulldogs. Frankie Sinkwich ( Georgia’s first Heisman Trophy winner,) Charlie Trippi ( Georgia’s best all round player,) and Herschel Walker (Johnson County star and Georgia’s all time leading rusher) are the three others whose jersey number will never be worn by another Bulldog player. Sapp and Walker are the only native Georgians in the illustrious quartet. After college Sapp went into business in the Augusta area, where he sill lives today. Amazingly, both men grew up within five miles of each other. On this forty-fifth anniversary of the Sapp’s day in the sun, listen to the words of Georgia Bulldog Poet Laureate, Harold M. Walker:

"Rise up you loyal Georgians
From Tybee Light to Rabun Gap,
Here’s to the Macon Mauler,
The mighty Theron Sapp.....
The word will still be carried
By every loyal mouth -
Let’s stand and drink another toast
To the man who broke the drouth!"

ED HODGES

Ed Hodges, United States Navy

Ed Hodges (upper left) on the beach at Normandy.




D-DAY
“Scared? We Didn’t Have Time To Be Scared.”

THE ENGLISH CHANNEL: June 6, 1944: Ed Hodges didn’t have time to be scared. As a matter of fact, he hardly had time to think of the magnitude of what was about to happen to him. For more than a year he and his battalion had trained in the United States and North Africa, received their baptism under fire in Sicily andtrained some more. They knew their mission. They had diligently trained for it since their arrival in England. Everyone knew what was coming. It was a matter of when and where. From that point on, it was all instinct.

It was cold and cloudy off the southeastern coast of England at dawn on the morning of June 5, 1944. The harbors around Weymouth, Portsmouth and Southampton were filled with American and British vessels. With more than 4000 ships and boats carrying 180,000 men and covered by 13,000 aircraft, the largestarmada ever assembled began the hundred-mile trip across the English Channel toward the coast of France. Operation Overlord had begun. Since Germany first occupied France in 1940, Hitler’s forces knew that eventually the western Allies would launch a powerful strike across the channel. German strategists believed that the invasion would come at Calais, some twenty one crow fly miles away from the English Coast. After all, invading armies had taken the route many times before across the channel all the while keeping the French coast line in their sights. Allied planners concentrated a feint on Calais, including the creation of the illusion of non existent infantry, armor and artillery units in northern England.

Just ninety minutes after midnight on the morning of June 6th, 1944,paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions began leaping into drop zones behind the fortified German coastal defenses. Heavy bombing raids were conducted against German positions in Calais and Normandy in an attempt to disguise the true focus of the invasion. The waters of the channel were slight and choppy. Seasickness was spreading throughout the fleet. The air was cool, the night pitch dark. Then in a flash, the big guns of American battleships opened up. One sailor described it as “ Next, the sky lit up with millions of tracer fire, the sounds and sights were awesome. It looked like the world’s greatest fireworks.”

Before the infantrymen leading the invasion could land on the coast of Normandy, someone had to clear the beaches of land and sea mines, barbed wire and cris-crossed timbers designed to impede an amphibious landing. The task of clearing the beaches fell upon the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Naval Beach Battalions, who were assigned to Army engineers. Ed Hodges was an Electrician’s Mate Second Class with the 2nd Battalion. His friends call him “Bulldog.” If you know him, you would know why. Born Reese Edwin Hodges, Jr. in Washington County in 1921, was the oldest son of Reese Hodges, Sr. and his wife, CarrieHodges.

The 2nd Naval Beach Battalion was organized in March 1943 at Camp Bradford, Virginia. After a month of preliminary training, the battalion was shipped off to Camp Allen to prepare for the cross Atlantic voyage to Algeria, where it arrived on April 13, 1943. The sailors were subjected to intense training exercises before shipping out to Tunisia for more training. On July 10, 1943, in a preview of the inevitable amphibious landing in France, the 2nd Battalion participated in the invasion of Sicily, which led to surrender of the Axis country of Italy. Ed Hodges and his fellow sailors returned to Algeria for even more training.

In the fall of 1943, the beach battalion was transported to England, where they arrived on the day after Thanksgiving. Their voyage was not a pleasure cruise, as they were constantly harassed by German fighter planes. The beach battalions were primarily organized to act as liaisons between the naval forces and the invading army soldiers. During the invasion of France, the beach battalions would be the first to arrive. Their initial primary goals were to establish and maintain communications between the shore and the navy, guide the passage of men and ships in the area and demolish obstacles along the beach. Once the attack began, the men were to set up aid stations and field hospitals, as well as facilitating the evacuation of casualties.

In an interview with Sue Colter of TV-35 on the 50th anniversary of D-Day, Ed Hodges remembered going in about four o’clock that morning, about three hours before the first wave was scheduled to attack on Utah Beach. Hodges recalled that he and his men had to swim some to try and dismantle the firmly placed wooden frames close by the shoreline. “We had metal detectors to find the mines, and we had to dig them out,” said Hodges. There was some hostile fire, “but luckily not much,” Hodges recalled.

The 4th Division was coming in full force right behind Ed and his fellow amphibians, known as “frog men.” The German army was stronger than expected at the designated site. The number of mines and obstacles were greater than had been anticipated by Allied planners. In a twist of fate, as if guided by a divine hand, the first wave landed some 1200 yards south of the prime landing zone. The actual landing site was somewhat less fortified, and few mines were found.

“After the first wave got in, we had time to rest and the load lightened up,” remarked Hodges. When asked if he was scared, Hodges replied, “Scared? We didn’t have time to be scared. We had a duty to do and had to get it done.” Once the beachhead was established, Hodges and his fellow sailors were assigned to act as keepers of the beach, directing traffic in and out of the area.

A raging storm pounded the coast line of Normandy ten days after D-Day. A Landing Craft Tank was approaching the shore when it suddenly struck a mine and split in two. With all of the bravery and tenacity of a bulldog, Electrician’s Mate Hodges sprang into action. He could see the sheer panic overwhelming the dazed infantrymen. Ed, only 22 years old, abandoned his landing craft and began to guide the wounded men to safety. He helped five wounded men from the stern section and sixteen men from the bow to safety. 12th Fleet Commander Harold Stark awarded Ed a commendation for “ devotion to duty, seamanship and outstanding personal courage and skill in assisting the removal of the men under extremely hazardous conditions.

Following his discharge from the Navy, Ed returned home to Dublin. In 1948, he married his sweetheart Ann Prescott. Ed and Ann built a home in the post war suburbs at the eastern end of his grandfather’s farm, which once stretched from Lancaster Street to Bud’s Branch along the northern side of Veteran’s Boulevard. Ed and Ann worked several decades for the Veteran’s Hospital before their retirement.

My parents were good friends of Ed and Ann. Their children grew up and played with us. My first dance with a girl was around the Maypole in 1963 at Moore Street School with his daughter Rae Ann, who became a close friend of my sister Janet. His son Chris, my brother Henry and I played together often. Never did I ever dream that the little big man they call “Bulldog” was such a hero. June 6, 1944 was one of the pivotal days in the history of mankind. Ed Hodges and the hundreds of thousands of men just like him had a mission to do and they did it. Simply said,
they saved the World.

STILL VAULTING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

The Ira Welborn Story

Just what possesses someone to take a pole in their hand, run as fast as they can, plant the pole and vault themselves more than a dozen feet up into the air and then land on a pad without seriously afflicting pain upon their bones, muscles or tendons. For one former Dublin High School athlete, pole vaulting seemed to be the natural thing to do. Ira Welborn, a former state and national champion, has been pole vaulting for more than a half century. Today at 62, he still remains active as a vaulting coach and as a weekend warrior, still seeking to make the perfect jump.

Ira Welborn was born in Dublin just as our country was about to enter World War II. As a kid living on Washington Street, Ira would often wander over to the neighborhood creek. His first poles were limbs which he used to vault over the creek. He looked up to the Olympic vaulters, who fostered his interest in the sport of pole vaulting. Ira’s mother, Mary Turner Barfield, came to Dublin to live with her father, Wiley Turner, who worked at the plywood mill down by the river. Ira didn’t come from a wealthy family. “It seems like I delivered half of the papers in Dublin every morning and I had a route in the afternoon too,” said Welborn. Later his family moved to Woodland Avenue near Dublin High School. Ira remembered that in the mid 1950s, Dublin High didn’t have a track field. Runners ran laps around the football field. There was no true facility for pole vaulting, the team didn’t even own a pole except an old 16 pound steel pole that wouldn’t bend.

One day when Ira was about twelve or thirteen years old, he was hanging around the track. He spotted a strong athlete who was attempting to set the school record of around 8 and a half feet. Admitting his cockiness as a youth, Ira boasted that he could easily make the jump. The highly incensed track star dared the young whippersnapper to try it, threatening to kick his rear if he didn’t and having no doubts that Ira could do it in the first place. Ira grabbed a pole, ran and made it over the bar much to the utter amazement of the embarrassed challenger. The rest, as
they say, is history.

Undaunted and without the use of a regulation pole, Ira vaulted with anything he could find, even bamboo poles cut from the woods. He practiced and practiced. He got pretty good at vaulting, so much so that when no one was looking, he’d get a pole and jump over the 10 foot tall goal posts at Battle Field. “I would have been in trouble if anyone saw me and I would really be in trouble if I hit my chin on the way down,” Ira fondly remembered. Tom Stewart was Ira’s first coach. In his senior season, the track team got a new coach, Earl O’Neal. “Coach O’Neal admitted to me that he knew nothing about pole vaulting, but he took me to all of the big meets and allowed me to compete,” Welborn remarked.

All of the hard work and dedication paid off. Following his usual custom of borrowing someone else’s pole, Ira set a Georgia High School record in the 1959 State Track Meet. His vault of 11 feet 10 and one half inches, which was actually closer to 12 feet, stood for many years before being broken when fiberglass poles came into use. While Ira didn’t participate in any other track and field events, he did play basketball. He played on one of Minton Williams’ basketball teams which went undefeated in its regular season, a year which included a 30 point blowout over the Cochran Royals in Cochran and Cochran’s subsequent forfeit to Dublin. Remarkably in the state playoffs, Dublin drew Cochran, which in the meantime had added a strong player, who appeared to be in his third year as a senior in high school. Cochran slipped by Dublin, only to win the state championship.

Ira was offered a track scholarship to Southern Miss, but the school decided to drop track and field before he got a chance to participate. He played around during his college years jumping in an unofficial capacity, but got out of the sport to teach. He taught for ten years, without vaulting much at all. It was during this time when the fiberglass poles came into popularity and changed the sport forever. In those days good poles were (and still are) expensive for the average vaulter. Ira left the sport soon after he got married. Like most of us, Ira gained weight after high school. As he approached the age of thirty, he got into body building. Knowing that in order to get back to the sport he dearly loved, he would have to shave nearly twenty percent of his body weight. He trained hard and long and dropped forty pounds in six weeks to drop to a nearly ideal weight of 180 pounds.

In 1973, Ira competed in the annual track meet in his second hometown in Jacksonville, Florida. At the age of 32, he set and still holds the city record with a jump of 14 feet 10 inches. In 1976, he traveled out to Oregon for the Masters National Championship. Competing with the best of the best vaulters in the country, Ira won the competition and set a national record for a vault for a person over the age of thirty with a jump of 14 feet 6 inches.

Ira continued to work out and train. He built a pole vaulting facility in his back yard. To this day and about once a month he and two buddies, one from Fitzgerald and the other from Apopca, Florida meet and try to set records for vaulters over the age of sixty. Once a year, Ira hosts a 4th of July vaulting party, where his friends and former students gather together for an evening of food, drink and vaulting.

At the age of fifty six, Ira traveled to Maine to compete in the Masters Championship. Ira managed to win the national event with a remarkable jump of 10 feet 6 inches, considering that fact that he was in his mid 50s and that at times the wind was blowing at speeds approaching 45 mph.

Ira is still teaching pole vaulting and putting on clinics. He regrets the sport is beginning to wane because of the high liabilities involved. Welborn has observed that actually young girls and women are helping to save the sport. He sees a lot of fathers who are supporting their daughters in the sport, which seems to derive a lot of its new participants from former gymnasts. His greatest reward comes from seeing his students achieving their personal best marks and winning competitions. He enjoys working with novice jumpers and molding them into champions.

You’ll find Ira out in his back yard jumping twice a week, still looking for the elusive perfect jump. Welborn compares vaulting to golf, “you practice and practice and never make the perfect jump.” In the meantime, he keeps in shape maintaining his high school physique, but trying to avoid a career ending injury. He plans to jump until he is seventy five years old. You know what, I think he’ll do it, and I wouldn’t bet you any money that he can still jump over the goal posts at the old Battle Field.

(L) Lewis Brantley (R) Charles Brantley

SIBLING SERVANTS
The Story of Lewis and Charles Brantley

Too many people think that Shriners put on funny clothes, get in go-carts and parade around on Saturday afternoons. Yes, they are committed to having fun, but their mission is much more profound. The Shriners seek to foster self improvement through leadership, education and community involvement, while their ultimate goal is to serve mankind and in particular, through their operation of Shriner’s hospitals, burned and crippled children. This is the story of two former Laurens County men, who have dedicated most of their adult lives to those goals and in the process rose to the pinnacle of the Shrine of North America.

Lewis and Charles Brantley were born into a sharecropping family in Wheeler County. Lewis was born in McRae in 1937 and Charles was born in nearby Towns, Georgia in 1939. Their parents, Charles Slaton Brantley and Mary Lois White Brantley, were the parents of four other children, Harris Brantley, Margaret Bottoni, Carolyn Stallings and Christine Lewis, the eldest sister who lives at Ben Hall Lake in Laurens County. The Brantley family sharecropped on the farm of Stump Prescott in the mid 1940s. The boys attended school here. Their father had gained some experience as a plumber. His brother Taylor Brantley operated a plumbing business in Dublin for many years. In 1949, when Lewis was twelve and Charles was ten, the Brantley family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where the senior Charles got a job as a pipe and steam fitter in the ship yards. Lewis graduated from McCoy Vocational School and attended Jacksonville University, while Charles graduated from Robert E. Lee High School and Nova Southeastern University with a BS degree in management. As young men, the Brantleys served in the U.S. Army Reserve in Jacksonville. Lewis and Charles have always been close. Charles described his older brother as “a strong competitor who had a strong work ethic and was highly motivated to succeed early in his career.”

As a high school student, Lewis worked in a small neighborhood sheet metal shop. By the age of nineteen, he owned a small shop. A few years later, Lewis merged with another shop and eventually owned that shop as well. As he began to succeed in business, Lewis became interested in politics. He sought political office because he believed that the business community needed support from state government. At the age of twenty-nine in 1966, he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives. After four years in the House, Lewis decided to run for a seat in the Florida Senate. He served in the Florida Senate until 1978. In 1976, he was elected to a two-year term as President of the Florida Senate. It was during his term as President that the State of Florida completed a new capitol building. While he was the last Senate President to preside in the old building and first Senate President to preside in the new building, Charles said “ Lewis never forgot where he came from selling boiled peanuts and shining shoes on the streets of Dublin, Georgia.” While in office, Lewis worked hard to promote the construction industry and small businesses throughout the state. He served as Chairman of the Committee on Commerce and the Senate Rules Committee.

Always active in industry organizations, Lewis served as president of the Jacksonville and Florida Roofing and Sheet Metal Associations. He served as Vice-President of the Florida Council of the Boy Scouts. As a Rotarian, Lewis served as a director of the Jacksonville Club and a Paul Harris Fellow. He was the founding chairman of the Jacksonville Economic Development Council and a member of the Florida Committee for Employer’s Support of the National Guard. In 1991, he sold his two companies, Brantley Sheet Metal Co. and Park & Mick Welding and Machine Works, and concentrated on his residential and commercial properties, as well as farming and cattle ranching. He continued to serve on the board of directors of First Guaranty Bank and Vice Chairman of the Methodist Hospital. All of this he did with the support of his wife Catherine and his five children.

Charles inadvertently got into public service. He began working with the Florida Legislature while he was in college. The next thing he knew, he had completed twelve years as an assistant to David Kerns, director of the Florida Legislative Bureau, assistant to Rep. James Sweeny and senior legislative analyst with the Florida House Committee on Transportation. Charles moved over to the executive branch of government in 1981, first as the Assistant Director, then in 1993 as Director of the Florida Motor Vehicle Department. After a twenty-year career with the department, Charles retired in 2000. During his term as director, Charles played a leading role in the automation of titling and registering vehicles within the state. Still wanting to serve the public, Charles accepted an offer to become the President of the Florida Trucking Association, a position which he still holds today.

Charles was appointed to the post because of his vast experience in the operation of Florida government as it pertained to transportation issues. “While I did not intend to have a career in government, it was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Charles said. “ I enjoyed my 32 years in government service and it was great for me. I wouldn’t change a thing,” Charles concluded.

Lewis, who was everlastingly devoted to his family, joined the Shrine, which allowed him to extend that devotion to many children who needed medical help. Through the Shrine Clubs of North America, Lewis with undying compassion provided children throughout North America with much needed support. A Shrine member since 1960 and a Master Mason since 1959, Lewis spent nearly three decades climbing the various Chairs. In 1987, he was awarded the honorary 33rd degree of Scottish Rite Mason along with Senator Sam Nunn and singer Burl Ives. On July 3, 1997 during the annual Shrine convention held at St. Louis, Missouri, Charles was elected the 109th Imperial Potentate of the Shrine of North America. As the leader of the national organization, which operates 22 hospitals in North America to aid children with orthopedic and burn problems, Lewis felt a great responsibility to do more for the children, funneling every available resource to provide better medical care.

Charles was appointed by Lewis as Chaplain of the Shrine of North America. While he is not a minister, Charles is an active member and Deacon of the First Baptist Church of Tallahassee. Charles enjoyed his year as chaplain and sincerely hoped that along with his wife Suzanne, a talented concert pianist, that he was able to positively influence the people they came to know. “It certainly changed my life and helped me to become a better Christian. I will always be grateful to my brother for that appointment,” said Charles.

The Brantley brothers are the epitome of public servants. Devoting their lives to serve their fellow man, they have lived their lives according to the long established and universally appreciated principles of the Shrine of North America.

Update: Lewis Brantley lost his battle with lung cancer on Tuesday, May 9, 2004.

IMAGENE STEWART

Imagene Stewart from The History Makers.com



IMAGENE STEWART
Compassionate Warrior

Imagene Stewart has many battles to fight. She comes armed with a life long cache of compassion. Her morale is high. Surrounded by the mighty fortress of God, she fights on against the mortal enemies of time and apathy. Where she feels pain, she heals it. Where she senses loneliness, she comforts it. Where she sees an American flag, she salutes it.

Born Imagene Bigham in Dublin, Georgia on September 23, 1942, she learned the foundation of her life from her parents, Rev. J.C. Bigham and Mattie Watkins Bigham, who married in Laurens County, Georgia on November 28, 1941. Imagene married Lucius Johnson on August 11, 1958. After her marriage to Lucius “L.C.” Johnson ended, she lived in public housing in H.T. Jones Village with her mother, and her two sons, Michael Tyrone Johnson and Jeffrey Lorenzo Johnson. She worked a domestic servant just like her mother. Imagene learned all too well of the injustices of life in the country in the fifties and early sixties. She Participated in many civil rights marches in Dublin with the Bates sisters.

It was in 1963 when she began to prepare for the battles to come. She traveled to Washington, D.C. with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a member of the Georgia delegation on the March on Washington. She stayed in Washington and was an active member of the the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Recently, she told a reporter for The Pentagram, “I came here to fight racial injustice. I thought that white people were against me, but I realized that there were blacks against me too.”

As more and more veterans of the Vietnam War came home, she realized that many of them had no home to come home to. In 1972, she opened a shelter for homeless veterans. “ It seemed like some people forgot the Vietnam veterans,” said Rev. Stewart, an ordained Baptist minister. She continued, “ Those people gave us the freedoms we enjoy everyday. They are the life-line of this country.”

Stewart, a harsh critic of the Veterans Administration for its seemingly uncaring treatment of homeless and helpless veterans and their families, refused to accept donations from the federal government. “Veterans are discarded by the military. The country does nothing for its homeless veterans,” she said. She accused many other similar shelter operators of bilking the government of funds without really caring for the veterans. Following the success of her six-family center on P Street in Washington, D.C., she opened a ten-family shelter in the Suitland section of the city.

Today in her twenty room House of Imagene, she provides bunk beds for twenty five people. There are occasions when veterans come in with the grandchildren, who have been left in their custody by neglective parents. Rev. Stewart welcomes them all with open arms. For more than three decades, she served meals on Thanksgiving Day to the homeless. Thanksgiving Day 2003, when her shelter served three thousand meals, was the last time her shelter serve the homeless on Thanksgiving. Her health and her age are beginning to fail her. Stewart said, “ I’ve gotten too old and my health is deteriorating. I can’t do what I used to do. I just feel I’ve been shoe-stringed for all the years and got no support. I’m at the point where I need help. I’ve enjoyed it, and I don’t think God would be pleased with me to walk away, even after 32 years.”

Imagene married Albert Stewart, a veteran of the Korean War. Both of her sons served in the military. Imagene told the reporter from the Pentagram, “ I always wanted to be a soldier, but in those days the military rarely accepted teenage mothers.” She keeps close to the military as much as she can. She visits the wounded and maimed soldiers who are being sent from Iraq to Walter Reed Hospital. “They are babies, 18- and 19-year-olds without arms and legs. What are they going to do when they try to pick up their lives?” she wonders. She has served as Chaplain of the Tuskegee Airman Civil Air Patrol at Andrews Air Force Base.


Stewart served as the National Vice President of the Eastern Division of the American Legion Auxiliary from 2000 to 2001. She served as president of her local legion auxiliary as well as on the executive board of D.C. Veterans & Auxiliaries Council Veterans Against Drugs. She has been a member of the U.S. Air Force Mother’s Club, American War Mothers and Amvets Auxiliary. In addressing the convention of the American Legion in 2001, she commented on the suggestion that blacks pledge allegiance to Africa and not the American flag, she brought forth a thunderous standing ovation when she told the gathering of veterans, “Well, honey, I ain’t never been to Africa. . . I was born in the United States of America, very proudly.” She has been named by the National President of the Legion Auxiliary as “An Angel in Action” for her decades of showing mercy to homeless veterans.

Stewart was consecrated presiding Bishop of the African American Women's Clergy Association during a Women's History Month celebration March 2, 1996 at the Chapel of Hope, Shilo Baptist Church. She is a pastor of the Greater Pearly Gate Full Gospel Baptist Church, Bishop Stewart was the first African-American minister elected National Chaplain to the American Legion Auxiliary.

Bishop Stewart has been awarded numerous accolades for her community service. In 1991, she was commended by President Bush for efforts in meeting the needs of homeless veterans. The next year, she was awarded the prestigious “ Living the Dream Award” for her service to battered women. Oh yes, the House of Imagene takes in victims of domestic violence in the D.C. Area. Are you surprised? In 2000, she was awarded a Leadership Award by the D.C. Chamber of Commerce. She has been commended by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has provided his own support of homeless veterans in Washington. On Feb. 8, 2004, she was awarded acommunity service award by Fort Myer, which Bishop Stewart calls a “thankless job,but somebody has to do it.” In her spare time, Bishop Stewart hosts a Sunday morning radio talk show on WOL 1450 AM in Washington, D.C., where she is known to her listeners as “The Georgia Peach.”

For decades, Bishop Stewart has been a leading advocate for a constitutional amendment to protect the American flag from desecration. Despite the fact that most states have asked the Congress to adopt such an amendment, the Congress has failed to act. She served on the board of the Citizens Flag Alliance and urged her listeners to speak out in favor of the amendment to protect the flag.

While Imagene has long been an advocate for the rights of her people, she doesn’t consider herself an African-American. “Some people tell me my allegiance should be to Africa,” she told the Pentagram reporter. “I’m from the USA. I’m an American,” she proudly proclaimed. She is often criticized for her support of President George W. Bush, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t an advocate for social rights. She always has been there to defend and promote the rights of all persons. She has adopted a policy of “love one, love all.” She supports President Bush for his strong stance in protecting the freedoms we enjoy following the Attack of America.

Today, Bishop Stewart is fighting the biggest battle of her life. It is a personal one, the battle against ovarian cancer. Tonight when you go to bed, say a prayer for this “Compassionate Warrior.” Pray for her health and those she fights for.

DR. ROBERT E. SHURNEY
Better Than Anyone Thought He Could Be


The wood paneled walls of Bob Shurney's home office are nearly covered with an eclectic array of plaques, presentations and proclamations, all in a testament of his thirty-six years of public service to his country. Overcoming the tragedy of his mother dying at a young age, this Dublin native served his country admirably both on the ground and in the air. This is a story of a man who was given an equal opportunity to show his abilities and became one of the most important men in the history of manned space flight.

Robert Ellerston Shurney was born in Dublin, Georgia on December 29, 1921. His parents, Vance Shurney, Sr. and St. Clair Weston, were also the parents of Vance Jr., Green Weston and Edna Louise. Vance Shurney, a native of Cochran, Georgia, lived at various places while he in lived in Dublin. After World War I, he moved from his home at 302 N. Washington Street to another home on Cooper Street. Vance, Sr. worked as a fireman for the Dublin Lumber Company during World War I while St. Clair was a teacher. St. Clair Shurney died when Robert was only ten years old. Robert was devastated and reportedly never knew how his mother died. Robert and his siblings moved to San Bernadino, California to live with their grandparents. It would be another quarter of a century before Robert would see his father again. Vance Shurney returned to Dublin, where he died on January 16, 1991 at the age of one hundred years.

Robert Shurney always had a talent for building and designing things. He worked as an auto mechanic as a teenager. Economics forced Robert to withdraw from school to help support the family during the Great Depression. His grandparents wanted Robert to be a minister, but he wanted to be an engineer. Robert was able to fulfill his parent's dream of his receiving a Christian education. He was sent to Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, where Shurney still lives today.

Robert Shurney moved to Washington, D.C. and was drafted into the service in World War II. Shurney seemed to have a natural born aptitude for medicine and helping others and became a medic in the United States Army at Camp Meade, Virginia. He served in the army during the invasion of France and endured the horrors of war on a first hand basis as the Allied forces moved across France and Germany. After his three-year hitch in the Army, Shurney retired to civilian life.

He returned to California after he married the former Miss Susie Flynt. Robert and Susie were blessed with three children twins, Glenn and Glendon Patricia "Peggy," and Darrell. Afterwards the Shurneys moved to Nashville, Tennessee where the course of Bob Shurney's life would change forever. It was in Nashville where their last child, Ronald "Ronnie," was born.

Robert returned to the medical field when he took a job as an engineer in the Riverside Hospital. It was at the hospital where Shurney's life's mission was steered in another direction by Dr. Carl Dent, the hospital administrator. Shurney wanted to help others and to become a success to support his family in the process. Dr. Dent and some of Shurney's other colleagues and friends urged him to attend college. One friend told him it was impossible, a statement which spurred Robert to enter college. In the 1950s, it was nearly impossible for a man of thirty-five years of age with four children to attend college, much less a black man in the South. But Shurney persevered. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Electrical Engineering from Tennessee State A & I University in Nashville in 1962.

The most exciting field of engineering in the late 1950s and early 1960s was the space program, which was begun in 1958 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Shurney applied for a job at NASA, but was turned down. The only jobs at NASA on those days were for only menial tasks. Shurney called upon his sister-in-law who waked with Dr. and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Kings contacted U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who along with the powerful African American Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, convinced the Space Administration to hire Robert. Shurney returned to Huntsville, where he was hired after a favorable interview in the latter months of 1962. The faces of engineering labs and test facilities was about to change for ever. No longer would every engineer be a white male with a buzz cut, black framed glasses and a slide rule in his hand. Many times the white workers believed he was the janitor. On many occasions, he was the only African-American in the briefing rooms.

In an interview with John G. Radilowicz of the Buhl Planetarium and Observatory, Shurney recalled his first meeting with the Mercury astronauts. "They said they were looking for the one in charge of weightlessness training, and they went to every white person in the room asking if they were the person who ran the program," he said. "And when they finished asking all the whites, the whites pointed to me. It was my program," Shurney recalled. In his career at NASA, Shurney trained 90 percent of the program's early astronauts. Shurney worked in the Apollo program coordinating aircraft and hardware schedules and testing systems and components. Gemini and Apollo astronaut James Lovell in writing of his experiences with African-American in the space program lauded the roles that people of color played in the early days of the space program. Lovell said, "many people I meet think the space program was the exclusive domain of white, middle-aged men with crew cuts. But the reality is that African-Americans have played an active and important part in space exploration since the very beginnings of the program." In his essay written for NASA Quest, Lovell first cited Shurney for his contributions to the Apollo
program.

Another of Robert Shurney's first major assignments at NASA was to work with the weight distribution of the Saturn V rocket. The precise flight of the gigantic rocket, the most powerful ever designed by the United States, was absolutely critical to the agency's accomplishment of the goals set by President John F. Kennedy of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth by the end of the 1960s. All of Shurney's hard work on the Saturn V rocket culminated with the successful launch of the first rocket on November 9, 1967, for which he received a personal citation from Dr. Werner Von Braun, Director of the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. Shurney participated in all of the Apollo flights including man's first moon circumnavigation on the Apollo 8 mission on Christmas Eve in 1969 and man's first landing on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Perhaps Shurney's most well known and most heralded contribution to the space program came during the Apollo 15 mission. Mission planners were charged with the design of missions which would require the moonwalkers to seek out and retrieve the greatest variety of moon rocks as possible. Though the moon's low gravity allowed the astronauts to move easily across the lunar surface, it became imperative that the astronauts be able to move long distances without arduous and dangerous hikes across alien surfaces. Though three successful moon landings yielded a tremendous amount of data about the lunar surfaces, engineers were still uncertain as to the stability and composition of the moon's soil under the weight of the vehicle, its cargo of moon rocks and the two astronauts.

NASA assigned Shurney to design a tire for the vehicle which would allow the rover to move across the moon's surface free of bogging down in the thin soil. Shurney studied all of the available data and came up with a design with metal chevrons giving the rover the greatest traction possible, all the time keeping the vehicle within the weight restrictions during the launch. "There were a lot of things we didn't know about the lunar surface. We didn't know the dust profile. And so we took from the information that we were able to obtain and eventually came up with the idea of the chevrons that are on the lunar rover wheel. We designed it in such a way that it would keep the dust off the crewmen and they could see where they were going. The wheels left a trail like a rooster's tail. That's where we got the idea," Shurney said.



The tires of the Lunar Rover, designed by Dr. Robert E. Shurney.
Used for the first time on the mission of Apollo 15.


Shurney's design proved to be a success on July 31, 1971 when astronauts David Scott and James Irwin became the first men to drive a vehicle on the Moon. The Apollo 15 astronauts traveled slightly more than twenty-seven kilometers during their three-day visit to the Moon. The rover was used on the final two Apollo missions, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 contributing greatly to the success of the missions and the entire Apollo program as well.

As a part of his studies of the moon's surface, Shurney also developed a device to measure the depth of and any vibrations emanating from the lunar surface. Until future visitors return to the moon and retrieve the lunar rovers, they will remain on the surface, along with their tracks.

After rebounding from the devastating premature end to the Apollo program, Shurney and other NASA scientists went to work on the Skylab program, which utilized the hardware left over from the cut Apollo missions. Perhaps the most important part of the missions, aside from their technical aspects, was the strain on the human body during extended periods of weightlessness. Once again, Shurney was called upon to design systems and devices to allow the astronauts to function in a gravity free environment.



Dr. Robert Shurney testing weightless
conditions aboard a KC-135, ca. 1970s?
@N.A.S.A.

Early astronauts trained in pools of water to simulate weightlessness. NASA converted a KC-135 airplane into a flying laboratory to provide astronauts with twenty to thirty seconds of actual weightless conditions by flying upward at a forty-five-degree angle and then rapidly descending. The plane would fly "roller coaster" style for hours leading to its nickname of "The Weightless Wonder," or more affectionately, "The Vomit Comet." Shurney reportedly flew more than six hundred hours in the training aircraft, more than any other NASA employee, primarily during the Skylab flights and early flights of the Space Shuttle.

Basic human functions had to be addressed in a zero gravity environment. Just going to the bathroom in a toilet could become a messy and difficult process. Shurney designed and successfully tested toilets aboard the KC-135 for the Skylab missions, which lasted until the latter years of the 1970s. Just eating could also be an arduous task. Without gravity, some foods would simply fly apart before they could be eaten. Some sort of binding agent was necessary to keep the foodstuffs together. Once again, Shurney analyzed the problem and devised a solution to keep the astronaut's meals together. He even designed a special container to store the food in and utensils to eat the food with.




Dr. Robert Shurney, ca. 1990. @ Life Magazine

Spacecraft orbiting the Earth face the problem of intense heat on the sunny side of the craft and intense cold on the dark side. Shurney, along with others, designed a solar shield and solar panel. The shield insulated the spacecraft from the heat, while the panel helped provide a constant source of energy to power the orbital station's batteries and equipment. Many of Shurney's designs like the commode and food utensils have been utilized on the shuttle missions.

Shurney continued his education while working at NASA. In 1986, at the age of sixty-five years, Dr. Shurney received his PhD degree in physics from Columbia Pacific University in San Rafael, California. Shurney wrote, "During my time as an aerospace engineer, I kept abreast of new innovations in space by attending many colleges and universities, including Meharry Medical College, Howard University, the University of Michigan, the University of Alabama and the University of Oklahoma." He wrote many technical manuals and scientific journal articles. In 1990, after thirty six years of government service, twenty-eight of them with NASA, Dr. Robert E. Shurney retired. During his years in the space program, Dr. Shurney was awarded the First Lunar Apollo Flight Award, the Apollo Achievement Award and the Skylab Achievement Award along with a myriad of certificates of appreciation and letters of commendation.

After retiring, Dr. Shurney's service to his community did not stop. The doctor has lectured on college campuses around the country and as a judge at numerous science fairs. He has volunteered whenever and wherever he could. He is an ardent fund raiser for his alma mater, Oakwood Junior College.

Nearly a half century ago, Robert Shurney must have felt the whole world was against him. Today, he is just now receiving the recognition he so richly deserves for leading men into space and to the surface of the moon. He battled the obstacles in his way with dignity, perseverance and natural intelligence. Shurney believes that other underprivileged kids like him can still succeed with the right motivation and determination. " You don't have to do drugs. You don't have to stay out all night long. You don't have to prove anything to anybody but yourself. Have some plan for your life. Strive to be better than what people might expect you to be," Dr. Shurney contends. He ought to know. He's been there and done that more than anyone could have ever imagined that cold December day when he entered this world in Dublin, Georgia nearly eighty-five years ago.


Post Script: Dr. Robert Shurney died on November 25, 2007 in Huntsville, Alabama.

MAX BYRD - A Wizard of Words

MAX BYRD
A Wizard of Words

The kids of the Dublin High School classes of 1960 and 1961 knew Max Byrd was smart. They all knew that he could write well and speak well. But somehow they lost touch with their classmate when his father was transferred to a new job. This is the story of a young man who left Dublin in 1959. With the lessons he learned in halls of old Dublin High School ingrained in his brain, he graduated from one of the nation's top universities and taught at two more of the country's most well respected institutions of higher learning. Along the way, this affable man has written more than a dozen books on subjects ranging from literature to mysteries to historical novels and many more essays and articles.

Max Byrd, son of Allan and Rubye Byrd, was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1942. His father was an accountant for the Veteran's Administration. The Byrd family transferred to Dublin in 1954 and lived in a home on the hospital grounds. Max, like most of the kids of his day rode his bicycle to school, a fairly long ride to the old high school on North Calhoun Street. While Max was in school at Dublin, he was a member of the Latin Club, and in his final year as a junior in Dublin, he represented the school in the boy's declamation competition. He was a member of the debate team and garnered a medal at the state competition. Nearly fifty years later, he still retains vivid memories of "Board of Education," a large wooden paddle wielded by the very stern principal, D.R. Davis. Max and most every one of his era remember the iconic, stern, but excellent, math teacher, Woodrow Rumble. "The class I remember best from Dublin High was Latin. "The study of Latin set me on the right track for learning to write English," Byrd said. In his junior year, Max was president of the Latin Club.

Just before the beginning of his senior year, Max and his family moved to Arlington, Virginia. A scholarship from Harvard University was all Max needed to embark on an outstanding career in education and journalism. Excelling in his studies at Harvard, Max was awarded a fellowship to continue his studies at Cambridge University, Kings College in England. Max returned to Harvard, where he obtained his Ph.D. in English.

While he was at Harvard, Max developed a life long friendship with classmate and fellow writer, Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, among many other best selling novels. Byrd owes a lot to Crichton, whom he considers as a writer "who arranges facts into fiction better than just anybody else." Chrichton, who began writing his novels at Harvard, encouraged Max to write. He admired his friend's dedication, energy and willingness to take risks.

Gore Vidal influenced Byrd in his historic fiction novels. Max owes a personal debt to Oakley Hall, the founder of the Squaw Valley Writers Conference, an organization now headed by Max. "I wish I could say that I was influenced by John Updike," Byrd said, "but he is so wonderful a writer of English prose that I can only look up and marvel."

Dr. Byrd crossed the long-standing crevice between Harvard and the nation's third oldest university, Yale University, where he was offered a position as Associate Professor. Max was awarded the Younger Humanist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities and an award from the A. Whitney Griswold Fund for the academic year 1974-75. His first book, Visits to Bedlam: Madness and Literature in the Eighteenth Century, won him many accolades. In 1976, Byrd edited and published Daniel DeFoe, A Collection of Critical Essays.

In 1976, after six years as an associate professor at Yale, Max made the life altering decision to leave the hallowed halls of the Ivy League and seek his life's goals out west in California, the native home of his wife. While serving as an associate professor at the University of California at Davis, Max began publishing books on English literature. His second work, London Transformed: Images of the City in the Eighteenth Century, a study of English writers he dedicated to Walter Jackson Bate, who inspired him as a beginning writer. From 1977 to 1988, he served as editor of Eighteenth Century Studies. In 1985, Dr. Byrd wrote and compiled Tristram Shandy, a scholarly analysis of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne.

In 1981, Max Byrd was promoted to a full professorship at UC Davis. He taught 18th-century British literature and occasionally freshman English. Byrd struggled with the concept of teaching college students to write fiction. He sees the greatest obstacle to teaching writing is that so many students don't read anything. It was in that same year when Max began to publish a divergent genre of books than his usual scholarly, literary writings. He began writing detective novels back at Yale in 1973. His first published novel, California Thriller, was the first in a series of Mike Haller mysteries. The Private Eye Writers of America awarded him their first ever Shamus award for the Best Paperback Original Novel.

The success of his first novel led to the follow up Haller mystery Fly Away Jill in the fall of 1981. A third novel, Finder Weepers debuted on book stands in 1983. Target of Opportunity, a suspenseful novel set in World War II, was a "Book of the Month" selection in 1988. His final mystery novel, Fuse Time, was published in 1991 and deals with a terrorist bomber in Los Angeles.

At the suggestion of his publisher, Bantam Books, Max began to write historical novels. His first novel dealt with Thomas Jefferson and the years he spent in France, years which changed Jefferson and the United States as well. Max felt at ease writing about Jefferson and his second subject Andrew Jackson because of his undergraduate studies at Harvard in American History and Literature. Byrd grew to admire Jackson, whom he sees as "routinely underestimated and misunderstood by historians." His third historical work novelizes the life of Ulysses S. Grant, who Byrd believes to have been "a remarkable man, remarkably rich and a man who lived a dramatic life." His latest book, Shooting the Sun, (2004) traces the life of the eccentric 19th-century English genius Charles Babbage and the Santa Fe Trail.

During his years of active writing, Max spent five or six mornings and evenings writing seeking to write a minimum of three to five pages. Byrd sees writing as a lonely business and one which you have to be obsessed to succeed.

In 2004, Max Byrd quit teaching. He told an interviewer with the Sacramento Bee that "retired" seemed so old and that he planned to keep on writing. Max is a frequent reviewer of history books for the New York Times. He also writes for American Heritage magazine and the Woodrow Wilson Quarterly. He plans to be the Carnochan Lecturer in Humanities at Stanford University next spring.

Max and his wife Brookes live in California. They have two children, Kate and David. His most vivid recollection of Dublin is the Carnegie library (Dublin-Laurens Museum), the Martin Theater and the beginning of Bellevue Avenue. He enjoyed the football games on Friday nights as well. Max Byrd hasn't been back to Dublin since he left more than forty-seven years ago.

P.S. Max, if you read this, you are always welcome to come back. The library and the theater are still there. And yes, the football games are still as exciting as they were when you left. I hope you gave me a good grade on this article.