James MagazineJames_July-August_2026_web - Flipbook - Page 82
Our publishing days at Insider
started when we purchased the
company formed by the late New
York Times best- selling author and
comedian Lewis Grizzard and the
late political editor for what is now
the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That
company owned the political newsletter that everyone read for decades,
“Bill Shipp’s Georgia.”
The list of great journalists
who have worked for this company
would put most major newspapers
to shame. Here is a partial list along
with Shipp: the late beloved Associated Press correspondent Dick
Pettys; Tom Baxter, former Political
Editor at the AJC; Joan Kirchner,
formerly with Associated Press and
now wife of Georgia Atty. Gen. Chris
Carr; the late Hal Gulliver, former editorial page editor of The Atlanta Constitution; the late Lee Bandy, Political
Editor for The State in South Carolina; Hastings Wyman whose Southern Political Report we purchased;
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the great columnist Dick Yarbrough,
Gary Reese, and of course our current publisher and former editorial
page editor at The Augusta Chronicle
Phil Kent. I am sure I missed a few,
and for that my apologies.
And that gets me back to Larry, who was a great businessman,
lawyer, politician . . . so many things.
But he also was a great writer. His
columns in James gave readers a flavor of Georgia that was truly needed.
He recounted stories, compiled lists,
analyzed circumstances— and all
with such a fluid style that one could
hear that unique and melodic voice
reading out every word.
I’m quite certain our last conversation was within the last year
or so. I used to kid him that as we
would drive up from Florida to visit
Atlanta I would see the Larry Walker Parkway and knew that if my car
broke down who to call. “Of course,
I would come get you,” he would
always respond.
Larry’s family’s tradition of public service, which started with his
grandfather and father, endures as
his son, state Senator Larry Walker
III serves as president pro tempore of
the Georgia Senate. Truly a point of
pride for Larry.
In his columns for James, Larry
used to love to write about happy
and simpler times. He was the type of
person to take note of the little things
that would remind us of our younger
days and of better times.
Finally, and I can’t say much on
this subject, it was Larry’s personal
copy of a very important book which
I studied as part of becoming a
member of “the best organization on
campus” at UGA. And that was a very
personal and meaningful gesture.
I will never forget that gesture
nor will I ever forget that voice. It
was just a little bit better. And I, like
so many who knew him, am a little
bit better for having heard that voice
and known that man.
