Stories

Ty Cobb – Baseball Legend
Tyrus Raymond Cobb (1886–1961), an American League baseball legend was born in Narrows, Georgia. In 1905 he joined the Detroit Tigers as center fielder, and in his 24 years in the American League became one of the best players in the history of the game. The hot-tempered Cobb, often called the “Georgia Peach,” achieved the best lifetime batting average (.367), made 4,191 major-league hits (now second in baseball history), stole 892 bases and won 12 batting championships. He was the first elected (1936) member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

When he retired after the 1928 season, he held 90 Major League records. But his skill as a hitter is almost overshadowed by his reputation as a fierce competitor, a reputation he encouraged. He was known to ceremoniously pick out a prominent location in the dugout and sharpen his spikes in full view of suddenly nervous opposing infielders.

One of the most vivid Cobb anecdotes is the half-true story of an interview that supposedly took place in the late 1950s. Cobb was asked how he would hit under “modern” conditions. Cobb answered, “Oh, I'd hit .310, .315.” The interviewer was shocked, “But Mr. Cobb,” he protested, “you hit over .400 three times! Why would you only hit .300 now?” Deadpan, Cobb replied, “Well, you have to remember, I'm 72 years old now.”

Bill Elliott – Racecar Driver
Racing legend Bill Elliott has built one of the most distinguished records in NASCAR NEXTEL Cup history. Throughout his career he has radiated a modest and friendly personality that has endeared him to race fans of all ages. Though quiet and unpretentious, “Awesome Bill from Dawsonville” has been dazzling fans with his racing ability for an amazing three decades.

Since 1976, Elliott has participated in close to 750 races, achieved 44 wins, collected 55 career poles and amassed winnings of some $73,101,719. With all of his incredible success, he still remains humble, stating, “We are all motivated by certain things. Of course, winning is one of them, but for me, the fans have always been the biggest motivational factor. I’ve said this over and over – our fans are the backbone of this sport and they are the reason we are able to do what we do.”

Bill Elliott’s devotion to both his sport and his supporters equals his talent, making him a legend with both his team and his fans.

Margaret Mitchell – Author
Atlanta native Margaret Mitchell has an interesting story that includes writing the enormously popular 1936 novel, Gone With the Wind, in which she told the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction from the Southern point of view. The novel quickly became a classic and has sold more copies worldwide than any other book except the Bible.

The story goes that Mitchell began writing Gone With the Wind while bedridden and nursing a broken ankle. As an avid reader, Mitchell requested that her husband, John Marsh, bring home historical books from the public library to amuse her while she recovered. After numerous trips the library, he finally told her, “If you want another book, why don't you write your own?” She did, and the rest is history.

In 1937, Mitchell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and in 1939, it was adapted into a highly popular film starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. The film made headlines when it won 10 Academy Awards at the 12th Annual Academy Awards.

Sarah McClendon Murphy – Educator
Born in 1892 to former slaves Gabriel and Huldah McLendon, Sarah McClendon Murphy (1892 – 1954) was the 10th of 11 children of a poor family in rural Seney in northwest Georgia. At age 4, Sarah’s mother died, and Sarah took on the role of mother for her younger sibling James. It was a nurturing role that would encompass Sarah’s future.

Though this was a time when African-American women were not encouraged to pursue an education, Sarah had a hunger for knowledge – to learn and to teach – and went as far as she could in a nearby country school before leaving for Rome, GA to attend an industrial school for blacks. Sarah wanted to attend what she called the “big Negro University complex,” Spelman Seminary, later called Spelman College, and her brother James worked on the railroad to help her get there.

At age 28 Sarah married Marion “Shug” Murphy and they saved enough money to buy an old five-room house on an acre of land, where they built a one-room frame building to serve as a school for grades K-12.

Now called Mama Sarah, her home became known as a place where children with no other alternative would be welcome. With a motto of “we’ll make room,” she and Shug cared for approximately 50 children at a time.

In 1946 Sarah won a $1,000 “Good Neighbor” award on a national radio show and the exposure brought in donations, enabling them to add a new building to the compound. In 1950 a wood stove started a fire which destroyed Mama Sarah’s home. Sarah, Shug and the children moved into the original one-room school building. Resources started coming in from Polk County, the state, the country and even the world. Several months before groundbreaking on the new building, Shug died, and eight months later, as the new building was about to be occupied, Sarah died.

Without Sarah’s leadership and vision, the home floundered after her death. In 1961 the Women’s Division of the Methodist Church took over the property and in 1984 it merged with the Ethel Harpst Home to form the Murphy-Harpst Children’s Centers, Inc. The Centers offer early education, intervention and prevention programs in addition to residential treatment and therapeutic foster care. Through the Murphy campus, this amazing Georgia woman continues to help children, families and “Sarah’s people.”

Ray Charles – Musician
Ray Charles was born in Albany, Georgia in 1930.

In his biography Charles writes, “Music was one of my parts... Like my blood. It was a force already with me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me - like food or water.”

At age six he started to lose his sight from glaucoma after traumatically watching his brother drown in the washtub his mother used for take-in laundry. From 1937 to 1945, Ray attended the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind, where he learned to play piano, among other instruments, and to write music in Braille.

Over the next 60 years, Charles would become one of the best selling musicians of all time. Recognized as the “Voice of Georgia,” Charles, a 13-time GRAMMY winner, has released over three dozen albums.

Charles was also significantly involved in the critically-acclaimed 2004 feature film “Ray,” which portrays his life and career between 1930 and 1966. The movie starts Jamie Foxx as Charles.

The story goes before shooting could begin, Charles wanted to meet Foxx and test him out for the role. Charles had heard that the younger man was an accomplished pianist and insisted that they sit down at two pianos and jam. Director Taylor Hackford brought Foxx to meet Charles.

The ensuing jam session lasted over two hours, and it’s said that Charles challenged Foxx to help him reveal the depth of his talent. At one point Charles stood up, hugged Foxx and proclaimed, “He’s the one… he can do it.” Foxx won the 2005 Best Actor Academy Award for the role.

Charles was able to attend a showing of the completed film, but he died before it opened in theaters. The film‘s credits note that he is survived by 12 children, 21 grandchildren, and five great grandchildren.

Zell Miller – Politician
Zell Miller is a product of the Appalachian Mountains of Georgia. Born on February 24, 1932 in the small town of Young Harris, Miller has been a businessman, teacher, marine sergeant and author of eight books. He graduated from Young Harris College in 1951, served in the U.S. Marines and then graduated from the University of Georgia in 1957 with a master‘s degree.

Miller has held positions as a professor at four colleges and universities. His public career includes service at virtually every level of government. Before being elected as Governor of Georgia in 1990, he served as mayor, as a member of the Georgia Senate, and as Lieutenant Governor.

Miller‘s successor as governor of Georgia, Roy Barnes, appointed Miller to the U.S. Senate seat following the death of Republican Sen. Paul Coverdell in July 2000. While the Democratic Party‘s historic control of Georgian politics diminished during his tenure as Lieutenant Governor and Governor, Miller remained popular and easily won his elections, demonstrating his ability to please members of both major parties in Georgia. Miller retired from politics in January 2005, following the conclusion of the 108th United States Congress.

Miller‘s love of teaching and commitment to education has resulted in one of the most ambitious agendas to improve public education in this century. Miller‘s HOPE Scholarship Program has been called the most far-reaching in the nation by The Los Angeles Times. His pre-kindergarten program is the only one in the nation available to all four-year-olds. News pundits have called Governor Miller “America's education governor.”

According to The Almanac of American Politics, “Few [U.S. state] governors have played as pivotal a role in national politics or have sounded as loud a clarion call of regional leadership as Zell Miller of Georgia.”

Official website of the Georgia Department of Economic Development

Official website of the Georgia Department of Economic Development