Virgil Adams can’t remember when he didn’t garden, fish and play around with words. He grew up on a
farm near the little town of McLemoresville, Tenn. (population 311 if you count dogs, cats and chickens) at a time when, if you didn’t
grow something or catch fish to eat, you didn’t eat.
He learned gardening and fishing from a daddy who
was pretty finicky about the way to garden and fish. He learned to study, read and write from a mama who was a pretty stern
taskmaster.
Virgil dropped out of high school and left the garden, the fishing hole, and his tablet
and pencil, and joined the Navy in January, 1941. He was 17 and was supposed to get out the day he turned 21. World War
II came along and changed the timetable. After the war, the G.I. Bill enabled him to enroll as a special student at Murray
State College across the state line in Kentucky. He later passed the GED and became a regular student. He didn’t graduate
from high school, but he got his bachelor’s degree in 1949 and moved south with Mary, whom he met and married at Murray, to do graduate
work at The University of Georgia.
Virgil quit being a student at the University and became an employee
of the University (news editor with the Cooperative Extension Service) in 1950. In 1956, while still working, he completed work
for his Master’s in journalism.
The following year (1957) Virgil left the University to become personnel
manager (he couldn’t eve spell “personnel”) of Jefferson Mills, a textile plant in Jefferson, Ga. He also agreed to serve
as editor of The Jackson County Herald for two weeks until the new owners of the paper could find an editor. The two weeks dragged
out to two years, and Virgil became part owner of The Herald for his “untiring” efforts. In 1962 Virgil and a friend purchased
The Hartwell Sun. It took only six months for Virgil to decide that ownership was not as much fun as writing and editing, so
he sold his half of The Sun to his partner and returned to the University for good – or until his retirement in 1982.
Virgil and Mary had lived in Jefferson since 1952, raised a daughter and three sons, enjoyed gardening, fishing and camping….until
Mary died of cancer on May 19, 1996. Although he told the kids he would never fall in love and marry another woman, he fell
in love and married Shirley Gentry on March 7, 1998. They live in Athens, Ga. Virgil continues to go fishing and camping
for a week in the spring and a week in the fall with the Clark’s Hill Gang; it’s a 40-year-old tradition. One thing he misses
about Jefferson is his garden.
He has given up his tablet and pencil, his old manual Royal, his IBM
Selectric, and gives Microsoft Word a daily workout. He’s been working on a book for 60-plus years (its still on the back burner)
does a weekly column for The Jackson Herald, and occasionally freelances for various, sundry and assorted publications.