Georgia Today: CDC art exhibit; Macon food giveaway; Asa Candler Jr. biography

Orlando Montoya: Hello and welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Friday, June 21. I'm Orlando Montoya. On today's episode, The city of Macon gets a big response to its free food giveaway. And a new biography profiles the eccentric millionaire son of an Atlanta business icon. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

 

Story 1:

Orlando Montoya: A new exhibit at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta features a dozen commercial airline seats, complete with locked tray tables and a lack of leg room. It's one way to experience Stand And Witness: Art in the Time of COVID-19. GPB's Ellen Eldridge attended the exhibit unveiling at the CDC's David J. Center Museum to tell us about it.

Ellen Eldridge: The works, by an international group of artists, poets, authors and performers, provide insight into processing life during a pandemic. Artist Jamie Allen says his personal experience during the COVID lockdown is reflected in his latest video collaboration. He says the lack of in-person inspiration deeply affected his art.

Jamie Allen: The people that we interviewed for our project, for example, talked continuously about like the water cooler, the pub after the meeting, the — the coffee chat, you know, as being kind of central to the way that motivation and knowledge and creativity actually function.

Ellen Eldridge: The exhibit focuses less on the COVID medical journey but more on how the artist processed the pandemic in real time. For GPB News, I'm Ellen Eldridge.

 

Story 2:

Orlando Montoya: A Virginia-based solar energy company plans to nearly double the number of solar panels it's buying from a manufacturer in Northwest Georgia. Summit Ridge Energy said yesterday it's expanding its partnership with South Korean panel maker Qcells, which has factories in Bartow and Whitfield counties. Summit Ridge Energy will increase its purchases to provide solar power to an estimated 200,000 homes and businesses in what it calls the largest domestic community solar buy in history. Green energy has become a major economic driver in Georgia and a political issue. Vice President Kamala Harris visited Whitfield County last year to announce the original deal between Qcells and Summit Ridge Energy.

Caption

Delta

Story 3:

Orlando Montoya: Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is partnering with Delta Air Lines and two other companies to study the possibility of making the world's busiest airport a hub for aviation based on hydrogen fuel. European aircraft manufacturer Airbus and hydrogen fuel cell developer Plug Power also are committed to the study announced today. The idea is to define the infrastructure viability and safety and security requirements to implement hydrogen as a potential fuel source for future aircraft operations at ATL. Hydrogen is a near-zero-emission fuel, seen as a key element to unlocking a decarbonized future for the aviation industry.

 

Story 4:

Orlando Montoya: The Georgia Department of Transportation is holding public comment on a plan to add toll lanes along one of the nation's busiest highways. The plan to add toll lanes to Interstate 285 and Georgia 400 in metro Atlanta's Cobb, Fulton and DeKalb counties is meant to reduce traffic and provide more reliable trips. The open houses are scheduled between July 8 and July 18, and online comments are open through July 29.

 

Story 5:

Orlando Montoya: Hundreds of people lined up in Macon today for a charitable food distribution. GPB's Grant Blankenship explains.

Grant Blankenship: The line of cars to get into the annual event put on by Macon's largest hospital was about 2 bumper-to-bumper miles long —

Volunteer: Hey y'all, I need two watermelons.

Grant Blankenship: — to the point of delivery of boxes of fresh produce.

Darlene Hardy: I need another watermelon.

Grant Blankenship: When I met Darlene Hardy, she'd already been in the line for two hours for the same reason as others: Inflation is supercharging her grocery bills.

Darlene Hardy: Yeah. Prices going up so high. Everybody needs to come that can get it — as you're eligible for it. Because things are just going outrageous.

Grant Blankenship: But just as obvious to Hardy, and, at the back of the line, to Joy Smith, was the perceived silence on the issue from anyone in power.

Joy Smith: I don't hear nobody saying anything about it. Not yet.

Grant Blankenship: For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Macon.

 

Story 6:

Orlando Montoya: The city of Tybee Island says they have had reports of the Portuguese man o' war washing up on beaches. The species is closely related to the jellyfish and recognized by its balloon-like float, which may be blue, violet or pink, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency says. A man o' war sting can be painful to humans and cause welts, and they can sting even weeks after washing ashore. The city of Tybee Island is warning beach goers to keep a safe distance from them.

 

Caption

Books!

Story 7:

Orlando Montoya: The Georgia Writers Association has recognized 14 writers with Georgia Author of the Year awards. The group announced its winners this afternoon. Among other awards, the director of Kennesaw State University's Master of Professional Writing Program, Tony Grooms, was honored for lifetime achievement. His second novel, The Vain Conversation, drew its story from an unsolved case of two Black couples lynched in 1946 by a white mob in Walton County, east of Atlanta, and Bangladesh native Rahad Abir of Alpharetta, north of Atlanta, won for literary fiction for Bengal Hound, a love story set just before the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence.

 

Story 8:

Orlando Montoya: Howard Hughes, Richard Branson, Leona Helmsley. The world has produced no shortage of eccentric millionaires and billionaires. In fact, Georgia has made a few of its own, and perhaps none with a more famous last name than Asa Candler Jr. Also known as Buddie, the son of Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler is the subject of a new biography. It's called Fortune and Folly by Roswell writer Sara Butler, who joins me now. Thanks for being with me.

Sara Butler: Thank you for having me.

Orlando Montoya: This is the first biography of Asa Candler Jr. What made you want to write about him?

Sara Butler: I came to Buddie by learning about his house. That's on Briarcliff Road. Briarcliff Mansion, aptly named. It is a part of Emory University's campus. And I'd heard rumors years ago that there was this abandoned mansion that students were permitted to walk around the grounds. And that was very curious to me. And when I went and saw it, I thought, "this is such a strange anomaly," to have this mansion abandoned out in the suburbs. And I had to learn more.

Orlando Montoya: But his life intersects with so much Georgia history. Emory University, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the Fox Theatre, and more. But he never was the builder of these things. Am I reading the book right? Did he actually build anything big and lasting?

Sara Butler: So okay, well, it depends on how you define big and lasting. He jumped in on a lot of ideas. He got a lot of funding. The initial thing that he built might not have lasted, but what came out of it has been lasting. So he built a speedway, literally built it. It failed. But if not for that, it wouldn't have become Candler Field — and then, eventually, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

Orlando Montoya: And the Fox Theatre. He wasn't directly involved in that. But you suggested it may be his grandiose idea that made it what it is today.

Sara Butler: He, headed up the financial planning committee. So he's the one that laid out all of the financial planning of how they were going to build it. It's one of the reasons that it was such a big plan, which is one of the reasons why ultimately the organization couldn't afford to finish it. So, yeah, I mean, he was directly involved, but he rallied people and raised a lot of money that ultimately still wasn't enough to complete the project.

Orlando Montoya: Now, you don't hold back about just how much Buddie messed up in his life a hotel, a stockyard. There was a movie studio. I want to lift up the story of the floating college if I can, because it's so perfectly captures his penchant for pompous ideas that he nonetheless gets other rich people to invest in until it fails. Can you tell that story, briefly?

Sara Butler: Yeah. That's actually my favorite story. I feel like when I was researching, I was learning, like you said, about these grand business ideas that sounded great at the beginning, were completely financially unreasonable and then inevitably failed. And then all of a sudden, I came into the most wonderful story I've ever read, which is this audacious idea of buying a transport ship, naming it after himself, and launching a prep school for boys to sail around the world.

Orlando Montoya: But it eventually didn't pan out financially.

Sara Butler: I would say shorter, shorter span than even "eventually." Very quickly it didn't pan out. The financial model just didn't make sense. He advertised the tuition and the enrollment, and if you do the math, there's no way this thing was ever going to turn a profit. So within a year, maybe a year and a half, that he had that thing very quietly melted down for scrap.

Orlando Montoya: Could anyone but a son of Asa Candler have failed so much and still gotten so many people to believe in his next venture?

Sara Butler: I think obviously with wealth there is a certain amount of a safety net, so you can swing big, take big risks and come out fine. I think a lot of it had to do with him being a very charismatic person. Just — reported from friends and family — he was just very likable, and I think he had a way of getting people excited and getting on board. I do want to say that, yes, his legacy is marked by a lot of failure, but Atlanta's skyline is kind of shaped by his failure. There are a lot of institutions that we wouldn't have if he hadn't swung big and failed. In the long run, we still have a lot of his ideas. We wouldn't have the airport. We wouldn't have the famous Claremont Hotel without him.

Orlando Montoya: What did his father, the man who built Coca-Cola, think of him?

Sara Butler: I think Asa Sr. had a soft spot for him. I think he knew that Buddie had limitations in terms of how much discipline he had, which impacted how business savvy he could be. But I think he wasn't immune to being swept up in the excitement when Buddie got really excited.

Orlando Montoya: And he got excited about a lot of things: bicycles, automobiles, airplanes, magic. Was he sort of a bored, rich man-child of the Great Gatsby era?

Sara Butler: It's funny, I've heard stories that his son — his son, John, actually — spoke of being a Great Gatsby type and kind of living that life, I think. He was a man of a lot of interests. And yeah, I think he bored easily. He got excited about new ideas. He wanted the best technology. If he were around today, he'd be a tech bro. He'd be a crypto bro, if he was around today. He'd be on board with the next big thing immediately.

Orlando Montoya: Why are we so drawn to stories about eccentric millionaires like this?

Sara Butler: I think eccentric millionaires tap into a part of us that yearn to be able to take big risks without consequences. We look at people who are eccentric and have the money to be able to do wild things. And there's a little bit of this living vicariously through it. I think it's one of the reasons for the, you know, popularity of flex culture and in social media for, you know, MTV Cribs, even Willy Wonka is sort of a story of somebody eccentric doing something wild with money that none of us would ever be able to do. And I think that's attractive.

Orlando Montoya: How much of your research, though, was separating fact from family lore?

Sara Butler: So it's less family lore. It's almost more community lore, right? So there was family lore, but a lot of what I was trying to unpack was what Atlanta remembers of him. So there were all of these rumors out there about how, you know, Buddie's ghost haunts his mansion, and he would get drunk and glare at people. And, you know, he buried elephants all over Druid Hills. None of that was true. And so teasing apart, what was myth versus reality was the main driver of this project. Originally, this wasn't going to be a book. All I wanted to do was know what was true.

Orlando Montoya: Have you spoken to Buddie's descendants about him or your book?

Sara Butler: I have been in touch with a few. During the research, there is one particular descendant that I worked with who has taken it upon himself to maintain the family tree and to try to pull together factual information. Since the book, since I've been doing, you know, publicity for the book, I've had other descendants reach out to me. I have had a few reach out to me to ask me to be — to limit what I say about him. Namely, don't mention he was an alcoholic. I appreciate the sensitivity to that, but by his own admission, by his own words, he was an alcoholic. And that's part of his story.

Orlando Montoya: What can we learn from the life of Asa Candler Jr.?

Sara Butler: I like to tell my kids that "weird changes the world." That anything that ever changed the world started out weird, big, audacious, and Buddie did that. He came up with ideas that, on the surface, were just weird. When he came up with the idea for the speedway, people weren't driving cars around here. Everybody thought that was a flash-in-the-pan fad. Everything he did — airplanes, he brought airplanes in when they were just a spectacle. Weird changes the world. He thought about big weird ideas, audacious ideas. And I think what we should learn from that is: entertain those ideas, because sometimes big things come from them.

Orlando Montoya: Well, Sara Butler, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for you being here. And thank you for your book as well. It's called Fortune and Folly.

Sara Butler: Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

 

Story 9:

Orlando Montoya: Northwest Georgia's Floyd County has completed an 8-mile bike and pedestrian trail around Rome. The continuous loop around the city was made possible by a connector completed in the past few weeks, linking to previously built trails. It links Mount Berry College, often voted as one of the most beautiful college campuses in the nation, with downtown Rome, the Rome Emperors baseball stadium area, rivers and other sites. City Commissioner Jamie Doss said the city, county and a nonprofit trail group partnered to complete the loop for its economic and recreational benefits.

Jamie Doss: You get to see all the best parts of Rome and Floyd County. It's a great incentive for people to get outside, get some exercise and enjoy the beauty of Rome.

Orlando Montoya: A ribbon-cutting for the project is yet to be scheduled.

 

Story 10:

Orlando Montoya: In Georgia Sports, the Atlanta Dream take on the Indiana Fever tonight in Atlanta. The record college career of the Fever's Caitlin Clark has attracted a lot of fans to the WNBA. The game tonight is expected to draw a large crowd, so it's been moved from the Dream's regular 3,500-seat arena in College Park to State Farm Arena, which can accommodate more than 17,000 fans. And Georgia native Coco Gauff and Georgia resident Chris Eubanks will make their Olympic debuts as two of 11 selections for the U.S. tennis team at the Summer Games in Paris. The U.S. Tennis Association announced the team earlier this week. Gauff spent her first seven years in Atlanta and has strong ties to the city while calling South Florida home today. She's currently singles world No. 2. Eubanks is a former two time All-American from Georgia Tech, whose 2023 breakout at Wimbledon thrilled tennis fans. He's currently singles world No. 44.

Caption

The Atlanta Mushroom Festival is this weekend in Piedmont Park.

Story 11:

Orlando Montoya: And maybe getting out under the shade, biking with some wind in your face will be a good way to spend the weekend. It's going to be hot all across the state with temperatures well into the 90s, but there's still plenty to keep your mind off the heat. The Made in Georgia festival is in Young Harris. The Pre-Fourth Arts and Crafts festival is in Hartwell, and Somerville will host its A Taste of the South Festival. AthFest Music and Arts Festival: Always a favorite for music fans from across the state that's going on in Athens this weekend. There's Augusta Pride and the Stonewall Block Party in Savannah to celebrate Pride Month. In the metro Atlanta area, try out the Atlanta Mushroom Festival at Park Tavern in Piedmont Park. All about mushrooms. What can you get from mushrooms? A lot of good flavors and maybe some other things as well. We'll talk about that. In South Georgia, you can find Thomasville's Juneteenth Freedom Festival and the Saint Simons Island Antique Show. And finally, the oldest festival in Georgia, the Watermelon Days Festival, takes place this weekend in the watermelon capital of the world, Cordele, Ga.

 

Orlando Montoya: And that's it for today's edition of Georgia Today, and that'll round out our week as well. I hope you have a great weekend. But before you go, a reminder, as always to check out our website, GPB.org/news. That's where you'll find many of the stories that you hear on this podcast, and many more stories from around the state, the nation and the world. If you haven't yet, hit subscribe on this podcast. Do so now. That'll help you keep us current in your feed. And if you have feedback, send that to us at GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Orlando Montoya. We'll be back again on Monday.

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For more on these stories and more, go to GPB.org/news