GC Retiree Association

Obituaries

Dr. J. Gordon Long

Dr. Therry Dawne Nash Deal

Ginger Rudeseal Carter

Lurline West

Louis Bourne

Clyde Tipton

Glenda Fay McCoy

Charles "Bo" Rankin

Gerald Adkins

Dr. Larry Elowitz

Patsy Ainsley

Mary O'Keeffe Hargaden

Ralph William Hemphill, Jr. 

Gregory John Jarvie

Cheryl Kish

Rommie Johnson

Bob Wilson Publishes GC History:   

125 Years of Georgia College (1889-2014) The History of Georgia's Public Liberal Arts University

The new GC history is now available in the Governor's Mansion gift shop and at Barnes and Nobles at the Campus Theater.  

Eustace Palmer Publishes New Memoir

Eustace Palmer’s “My Epic Journey: The Making of A Cosmopolitan” is a remarkable and most compelling account of the author’s life and experiences, from the times he could recollect as a toddler, to his departure in his middle years for the United States of America. Blessed with long life and the resources to travel extensively, his memoirs could therefore go back eighty years and move from events and attitudes such as the end of the second world war and the electoral defeat of the British heroic leader Winston Churchill in 1945, to the start of the Sierra Leone civil war in 1991. Of course, the memoirs are about the individual, about the development of the gifted young boy who would eventually become a celebrated and phenomenally successful teacher, scholar and academic; but they are also national, societal, and even international. Starting with the young boy’s exposure to a colonial educational system designed to promote the interests of the British colonizer rather than colonized nationals, the memoirs show the boy taking full advantage of it nevertheless and becoming a “perfect product of the system” and one of the most successful youths of the time in the whole of West Africa. The boy is also growing up in Freetown Krio society, and the memoirs inevitably give a detailed presentation of Krio social, cultural, and religious practices and attitudes. Moving to Britain to pursue higher education, the young man is well placed to study and appreciate the history, culture, educational system, and politics of the United Kingdom, and there are powerful vignettes presenting various aspects of the British social, political and educational structure. The memoirs move to Europe which the student visits several times to improve his knowledge of some European languages and gain understanding of the European character and significant historical European events such as the Renaissance. He visits the United States where he becomes acutely aware of the momentum of The Civil Rights Movement and the signing of various civil rights bills. The reader is held spellbound by the accounts of momentous world events such as the death of Pope John the twenty-third and the election of Pope Paul the sixth, the death and funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, the death and funeral of President Kennedy, and, later, the Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. It is obvious that the young man is preparing himself for leadership and to become not only a model African, but also a model cosmopolitan. He is cognizant of his Krio/African heritage, but he is also preparing himself to become a global citizen who could respond adequately to world trends attitudes.
Returning to Sierra Leone after acquiring “the Golden Fleece,” he places the experience, knowledge, and leadership qualities he has acquired to the service of his country, particularly as a scholar and educator in the field of academia, but he is also active in the educational and religious fields in general. The account of political, educational, and religious developments in this post-independence period is the most riveting of all. Sierra Leoneans in general, and Professor Palmer’s former students and colleagues in particular, will find this book enlightening and riveting, but so will other readers in Europe, the United States, and Africa.

Sarah Gordon publishes new poetry collection

THE LOST THING is a collection of poems exploring absence and loss and the potential of language to witness that loss. These poems capture the certain fading away--of family, individuals, places, and emotions. The inevitable erasures of time are countered by poetry that is often startling and compelling, asserting the necessity for a clear-eyed sensibility that is both honest and humane. The poet steadfastly refuses to settle for a facile cheerfulness or inspiration. Her territory is wide-ranging, sometimes wry, and relentlessly probing, with an eye always to the ironic, the strange, and the downright curious. In images that are precise and memorable, Gordon's poetry is hard-hitting and provocative, covering diverse subjects from the worlds of art, poetry, history, as well as the quotidian, topics often turned inside out to ensure the reader's focus and renewed attention.

Martin Lammon publishes new poetry collection

Martin Lammon's long-awaited second collection, The Long Road Home, offers poems that tell stories about a son's affection for his mother and father, and a husband's abiding love. His poems tell stories about back roads that crisscross Ohio's heartland, the Deep South, and beyond his homeland's borders, stories sometimes sad, sometimes funny, but always surprisingly familiar. Whether searching for Emus near the Oconee River, feeding pigs on his grandfather's farm, dancing with his beloved, or climbing up Blood Mountain and singing just for fun to the birds, Lammon reminds us how poems preserve best those moments that we long to hold on to, rewind and replay again and again. Like the poet Robert Frost, Lammon chooses the road less traveled, but rather than go alone down that solitary road, he invites the reader to join him on the journey