2744

and more

Fantastic, Fascinating, Freaky, Famed, Favorite, Foremost, Fateful, Fabulous, Forgotten,  Funny, & Phenomenal

FEATS & FACTS ABOUT THE FINE 

FOLKS OF DUBLIN AND LAURENS COUNTY, GEORGIA 

By: Scott B. Thompson, Sr.

@ 2021 

         THIS IS A COMPILATION OF THE OUTSTANDING ACTS OF NATIVE, SHORT TERM, AND LONG TERM RESIDENTS OF DUBLIN AND LAURENS COUNTY, GEORGIA.  FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS COMPENDIUM, ONLY ACTS OF STATEWIDE, SOUTHEASTERN, NATIONAL, AND WORLD ACCOMPLISHMENTS ARE LISTED.  VOLUME 2 WILL CONTAIN MORE FEATS ON A LOCAL LEVEL.  

   THERE ARE HUNDREDS, PERHAPS THOUSANDS MORE ACTS WHILE NOTEWORTHY, DO NOT MEET THE CRITERIA SET OUT ABOVE.

IF YOU HAVE MORE EXAMPLES OF FANTASTIC FEATS, PLEASE EMAIL ME AT

SCOTTBTHOMPSONSR@YAHOO.COM

THE LIST WILL BE POSTED ON THE INTERNET AND WILL BE UPDATED ON A REGULAR BASIS. 

11. Laurens County native and bank president, Maury Beasley, came from a highly athletic and determined family.  His father, Chan, was the Class AA Back of the Year.  Several of cousins  have had noted athletic careers.  Maury’s sport of choice was golf.   Beasley played on the golf teams at Dublin High School and the University of Georgia for eight years.  At Dublin,  Maury was the low medalist in Georgia in 1991 and 1993.   Beasley, the Georgia Junior Golfer of the Year in 1991, still holds the Dublin Country Club lowest round 61, which he set at the age of 16.   It was in November 1992, when the All American Junior Golfer, entered the Junior Rolex tournament.  Beasley drew the unenviable slot in a match play round with the country’s number one junior golfer.  Beasley prevailed in the match one up and has continued to play golf on an amateur and recreational basis.  The opponent he defeated  went on the become a big part of the PGA tour.  As of 2020, his opponent, Eldrick, another 16-year old from California, is tied for first in PGA wins and is second in major tournament wins.  Maury can still be proud of the day that he defeated one of the game’s greatest golfers, Tiger Woods.  

12. W.J. Gay, of Dublin, served as a tail and waist gunner on a B-17 bomber in World War as a member of the 8th Air Force.  Gay, who was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for shooting down two German fighters, defied the deadly odds of being killed on his fourth mission by flying twenty-five missions, a rare feat which earned him a ticket home.

13. Former Dublin Mayor and politician, Thomas B. Felder, served as a presidential elector in 1888 committed to Democratic Candidate Grover Cleveland.  Felder was the first Laurens Countian to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court (14.)  Thomas Felder took an active role on the private side of the prosecution of Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan, one of Georgia’s most celebrated murder cases (15.)  Despite his positive public accomplishments, Thomas Felder was convicted in several of the schemes of the administration of President Warren Harding in the early 1920s, primarily in the “Glass Casket case (16.)   Felder died under suspicious circumstances shortly after announcing that he was going to tell all that he knew about the scandals which rocked the country.  

17. Born as Walker Smith, Jr. in neighboring Montgomery County, Smith lived in Dublin on South Jefferson Street in his childhood.  Smith returned to the North, where he began to take part in boxing matches.  Over his 37-year career, Smith, forever known as “Sugar Ray” Robinson, won six world championships in the welterweight and middleweight divisions.   Sugar Ray Robinson was hailed by sportswriters and even Muhammed Ali as the greatest "pound for pound" boxer in boxing history. (18).    He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990. (19)  85–0 as an amateur boxer in 200 fights, Robinson won 173, 109 of those by knockouts.  He was only knocked out once, a feat surpassed only by Young Stribling of Macon. (20)   From 1943 to 1951 Sugar Ray went on a 91-fight unbeaten streak, the third-longest in professional boxing history. (21)  Robinson became the first boxer in history to win a divisional world championship five times. (a feat he accomplished by defeating Carmen Basilio in 1958 to regain the middleweight championship).  (22) Was named "fighter of the year" twice,  for his performances in 1942 and 1951. (23).

24. Lieutenant Colonel C.S. Guyton, of the Buckeye District of Laurens County, Georgia, commanded Hugh Mercer’s Brigade,  Confederate States Army in the opening moments of the Battle of Atlanta, which took place in Southeast Atlanta on July 22, 1864.  Guyton, who survived the war fairly unscathed, hid the regimental battle flag in his saddle.  Upon his return home, Guyton turned the tattered banner over to  the women of the family for safekeeping.  Today the flag is owned by Dr. Tad Porter.  

25. In 1922, the State of Georgia began to create Juvenile Courts.  The court was created in Laurens County in 1922 with the appointment of Annie Anderson, making Judge Anderson, the first female judge in Georgia’s history. 

26. Captain Raymond Talbird was the commander of Company A of the 395th Infantry Regiment beginning with the Battle of the Bulge. Talbird, who lived in Dublin for a short time, was one of a very few Army captains to survive World War II and be awarded two Silver Stars for  gallantry in action.

27. Dublin’s Lovett Park was empty.  For nearly two seasons, the minor league teams were gone to another league.  Officials of the Cincinnati Reds contacted park owner, W. Herschel Lovett, of Dublin to lease the park for one of many mini training camps and try out centers around the country in 1960.  Hundreds of hopefuls showed up to live their dreams.  Long time scout, Eddie Libatore, was there at least to find a few minor league players who could be trained to play in the majors.  As the workouts progressed, there was one young man who traveled a long way for his first professional tryout and mini-camp  just to be seen by his hometown team. Libatore was attracted to the prospect, but had some lingering doubts. He wrote in his report, “ I hit him a lot of ground balls. His glove looked as if it had been made by Bethlehem Steel.” But there were the intangibles that made this baseball man offer Edward a contract.   Edward quickly rose the ladder to the major leagues.  During the 1962, he became a hot young star with the Macon Peaches before beginning his major league career in 1962.  Edward Peter, better known as Pete Rose, went on to become one top two hitters in major league history.  It was his missteps as a manager which led to his banning from the Baseball of Fame, a sure honor for a professional career which began right here in Dublin, Georgia.

28. Pedro Campuzano, a 1980 graduate of Dublin High School, learned the essentials of maintaining and repairing cars from his father, one of the first managers of the Pizza Hut in Dublin.  Campuzano worked his way from a crewman to become the chief of Sebastian Bourdais’s car of the Paul Newman and Joe Gibb’s racing teams, During the 1990s, Campuzano was cited as one of the best crew chiefs in Grand Prix Racing.  Campuzano is the chief of design with Newman-Haas Racing in 2021. 

29. Chief William McIntosh, son of early Scott settler of southeast Georgia and a native American woman, was a first cousin to Laurens County’s most popular citizen, Gov. George M. Troup, who lived at his home “Valdosta” on the Old River Road at its intersection with the present day Interstate Highway 16.  The cousins would often visit with each other on extended visits.   McIntosh opted to reside at a plentiful spring a few miles to the south, which is today called Well Springs in the Rock Springs community. During the War of 1812, Chief McIntosh and his Lower Creeks sided with the United States against other native American tribes, who were allied with British.  McIntosh, Chief of the Lower Creeks, was murdered by his own people at his home in West Georgia in 1825.