Chris Weidner has lived in Jones County since he was 9, but he has few memories of the activities many youngsters and teens enjoy here.
Weidner, now 65, moved to Georgia from Indiana in 1967 when he was 5.
His dad bought property in Jones County in 1970, and the family moved here shortly thereafter. The youngster didn’t get to play around on what became a farm.
“I didn’t have a childhood,” he commented recently. “I mean I had to work. If (local farmer) James Comer called me and said, ‘I need help cutting silage,’ you didn’t tell him no. You asked him what time he wanted you there. You just did what you are supposed to.”
Weidner graduated from Jonesco Academy in 1980 and went straight to work at Georgia Power.
He stayed with the utility company for a year and a half.
“I decided that working for somebody wasn’t, you know, gonna work for me.
I had been running the family farm since I was 13.”
While he was with Georgia Power, in his words, ‘making some ridiculous money,’ Weidner quickly showed his propensity for business, specifically buying and selling land. Shortly after graduating from high school, he bought 53 acres adjacent to the family farm from developer/ auction company co-owner Ben Hudson for $800 per acre.
When the two went to the office of local attorney Pierce Anderson for the closing, Hudson told Weidner he had made a mistake. He had just agreed to sell property he had planned to subdivide. Hudson offered to give Weidner $1,600 per acre, double what he was paying.
“And I said, ‘Mr. Ben, are you gonna be upset if I say no?’ Mr. Pierce put his hand out. Ben handed him a $100 dollar bill. Mr.
Pierce made him a bet that I wouldn’t sell it. I told him, ‘Mr. Ben, if it’s worth twice that amount right now, what’s it going to be worth when I retire at age 40?’”
Comments prove to be true
That was the first of several occasions Weidner received some type of message regarding his future. Longtime developer and Conn Realty owner, the late Joyce Conn — ‘Sweet Mama’ — had helped Weidner navigate the transaction closing.
“Sweet Mama kind of took me under her wing, and she just told me, ‘You keep buying real estate, Chris. You are going to thank me one day.’” Weidner has done just that since then, buying and selling property in Middle Georgia, including numerous lots on Lake Sinclair. At one time he owned over 80 rental units. He has 44 now.
The second occasion Weidner was told something was going to happen in his life came after he met his future wife, the former Renee Theriault, at an event in Macon. He asked her to dance, and it went from there.
“When I got home that night and told mama about it and who I met, she said, ‘He’s going to marry her.’ That was 43 years ago.”
Weidner recalled that, after about their sixth date, he took his girlfriend out to his 53-acre tract and picked up a rock.
“I asked her, where do you want our house at?’ She was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ We put four rocks out there, and I told her I wanted a pond there.
That’s where we were going to build our forever house.
“But then,” he explained.
“GDOT (Department of Transportation) comes along and decided they’re going to have to put a bypass there.”
The younger Weidners ended up buying his parents’ home when they divorced and still live there today. They married in 1984 and raised two daughters, Chrissy and Jennifer, who have given them seven grandchildren, the youngest born just two weeks ago.
About the same time Weidner met Renee, he started his own timber company and ran it for 20 years. Renee had worked for a phone company for 15 years, but she gave that up.
“She took off to be there with the girls because I worked seven days a week to keep the business going for 20 years,” Weidner said. “She stayed home to be with the girls and helped me with the paperwork and all the business.” Though he had no qualms with the timber business, Weidner decided in 2003 to make a change. “It was good to me, but it got to the point it wasn’t making the money I was making on real estate at that point because real estate was my mainstay.”_ Renee agreed with him, and they sold the equipment and business.
Commissioner nails it
The third time that Weidner recalls someone making a statement about him and his future that turned out to be accurate came in the late ’90s.
He appeared before the Board of Commissioners to try to explain how the county could save money by contracting out garbage collection services. He noted that some commissioners were clearly against his ideas.
However, board member Bettye Williams (now deceased) listened to his arguments, Weidner recalled. “Her husband worked for me at the time, and she said, ‘Chris — she pointed to the chairman’s seat — you’re going to be sitting right there one day.
Mark my word.’” In 2016, the semi-retired 55-year old made a decision: He was going to run for Chairman of the Board of Commissioners.
“The county lacked accountability and transparency,” he said. “I wanted to help change that, and we have that today.
“I went to see Miss Bettye. It was just before qualifying. She said, ‘I knew you were going to show up.’ She gave me a hug, and she says, ‘You go ahead and run for chairman.’” Weidner did qualify and won. Now in his third term, he says the tax burden is a big problem in Jones County.
“We’ve got to have economic development,” he declared. “Eleven years ago, for every dollar a rooftop would pay into the county, it cost us $1.45 to supply services to them. I think these numbers are off now. Now it costs $1.65 for every dollar a house pays in.
“We’re a bedroom community,” the chairman acknowledged. “And people don’t realize every time a new house is built, that’s another 65 cents we have to come up with for every dollar we collect.”
Messages to remember
Early in his second term, Weidner missed his first meeting of the board.
He had a massive stroke New Year’s Eve of 2021, and that led to his most recent experience of being ‘told’ something about his future. The messages this occasion, however, were a little stronger.
Family members were home for the holiday, and when Weidner had no feeling in his right arm, Jennifer, who, along with her husband, is in the medical field, called a neurosurgeon she knew in Decatur.
“So, New Year’s Eve I am riding in an ambulance, or medical transport, whatever you want to call it,” Weidner shared. “They put me in intensive care at Piedmont Hospital, and the next morning at seven o’clock, I was on the (operating) table.
“I have a testimony I will share with anybody,” he continued. “I am not supposed to be here. Every time I heard the doctor talking to my daughter or wife, he said, ‘If he can just make it through tonight, if he can make it five more days’ … even when I was going under for the surgery, I heard the surgeon say, ‘If_ he makes it through this, I will be surprised.’ Every time I heard the Good Lord: ‘Chris, we got this; time and time again, ‘Chris, we got this.’” _Though the surgery was successful, Weidner was told because of the magnitude of the stroke he might not regain total use of his right arm or the ability to talk normally.
“The doctor said I might get some of my speech back; he said it’s going to be a long recovery. Every time I heard that, I heard the Good Lord: ‘Chris we got this’ … I’ll share that testimony with anyone because I took Him for granted for years. But that’s the only reason I am here.”
Despite the expectations of the medical experts, within six weeks Weidner was improving significantly. He told his daughters he was starting to get feeling in his arm again.
When his son-in-law came over to feed the cows, and his grandson ran up to him, Weidner — who now does 130 pushups every morning — didn’t hesitate. “I reached down with my right arm and grabbed him by the leg and threw him over my shoulder. I said, ‘Come on, boy, let’s go feed some cows.’”
