To say there has been a connection between the Kings and the University of Georgia would be something of an understatement, as three generations of the family have earned their degrees there.
Bert King, now 67, graduated from UGA, obtained his master’s degree there, and went to the university’s law school. Before him, his father, Walter E. King Jr., graduated from Georgia in 1948. Since then, his late sister, Kathy, and his two daughters, Katie and Anna, all received their diplomas there.
“My father served in World War II and went to Georgia on the GI bill,” King shared last week. He commented later there is currently no potential fourth generation of Bulldogs. “There are no grandchildren yet. We shall see.”
King was one of four children of Walter and Frankie King, and the family moved from Macon to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when he was in kindergarten. His father, who received a promotion with Ralston Purina to make that move, decided after seven years that shoveling and traveling in snow was not for him, his son relayed.
“He said, ‘I want my old job back’ and moved back to Macon. He took a big pay cut to do that.”
King attended schools in Macon until his father built a house in Round Oak, and he started at Jones County High as a freshman, graduating in 1976.
It was while King was still in undergraduate school at UGA that the future attorney had the pleasure of meeting a future legend.
“I was in the main library at the copier — this is back when you made copies — and I was standing there with a book, and this guy had two or three books, and he said, ‘Hey buddy, you go ahead of me because I’m going to be here for a while.’ It was Herschel Walker. I said, ‘Herschel,’ and he goes, ‘that’s my name, what’s your name?’ I said, ‘My name’s Bert King.’ He goes, ‘Glad to meet you, man, go ahead and make your copies.’
“He was known all over campus for being just a good guy,” King confirmed. “He was not one of these stuck-up prima donnas.”
King got to see Walker again … from a distance.
Georgia’s football team was playing Notre Dame in the 1980 Sugar Bowl in what turned out to be a national championship contest, and King was one of several hundred students trying to beat the odds.
“At Georgia, as a student you could stand in line — it was a cold rainy night, I remember that — you could stand in line to get a lottery ticket to be pulled for one ticket,” he said. “You had to pay for a lottery ticket with no hope of really going. Then, out of all the people that came and got those, just like any other sweepstakes, they pulled the number, and my number came up. So I got a ticket to go to the ballgame.”
King and some friends drove to New Orleans, and their seats were on the goal line in the upper level. They had a view of what became one of Walker’s famous dives over the goal line.
“We saw when Herschel launched for our first touchdown, and a guy from Notre Dame hit him. It dislocated his shoulder. We watched them on the sideline pop it back in, and he stayed in the game. Now, you’re talking about somebody tough.” The ‘Dogs won the game, 17-10.
King worked in the real estate field while he was in college. He obtained his license when he was a junior at UGA and worked with Allfarm Sales in Gray with Joe Patton and his son, Sam, and other realtors, mostly during the summers.
“We just had a ball selling real estate,” he recalled. “So I thought I was going to do real estate. Then I noticed how real estate can be feast or famine, and I didn’t want an income that went up and down. So after selling real estate, I went to law school.”
Following his graduation in ‘84, the new attorney joined a law firm in Macon, and he specialized in insurance defense. He had actually just been named a partner in 1990 when longtime Jones County attorney Pierce Anderson died. He owned the small lot and building between the courthouse and Methodist Church. His wife, Marguerite, contacted King and asked him would he be interested in buying the building and retiring in Jones County.
“I said, ‘No ma’am, I’d like to buy the building and start working out there.’ All I did was insurance defense. That’s all I did,” King lamented, “and I was tired of it. So I came out here and started doing what I enjoyed more: real estate, wills and stuff, just a civil practice.”
King pointed out that he had learned his new office building was anything but that. It was constructed before 1900 and clearly needed work.
“When I started, I didn’t have any extra change laying around, so I didn’t really do much of a remodel. But,” he added, “I tried to do some. There was no central air. There was a window unit for Pat Jackson, his secretary. There was no air conditioning where we’re sitting (back office). It would get hot in the summer!”
King eventually did a major renovation, taking out the drop-in acoustic tile ceiling Anderson had put in and redoing the original sheetrock ceiling. Painting and extensive refinishing gave it the appearance of a more traditional, modern office.
It was during these years that King married and had four children. Besides the two daughters, there are two sons, Adam and Josh.
King and his current wife, Cindy, have been married 14 years. “I have four children, and she has four children, none together,” he noted. “She works with me now as a paralegal, but she’s also a licensed real estate agent.”
King pointed out there is another structure on the office property, one he takes pride in and uses when he feels the need.
“If I want to get away, I’ve got this little office back there, he said. “We ran category 5 wire all the way from here out there. I’ve got my computer set up out there. We have a phone. So I can go back there and work whenever I want.”
King noted that the Sheriff’s Office was on that side of the courthouse at one point, and the small building that he uses now was built to house the sheriff’s car. When more cars were bought, the building was used for storage. But, the attorney explained, “it was just the frame with the board and batten on the outside, and on the inside it had these oak beams, rough cut, that you could see through, to the ground, pour water through, whatever; they’d pull the car up on it.”
King said he considered dismantling the building when he bought the land. “And then I found out the history on it, and I was like, eh, I’m not going to tear it down.” He had the oak beams milled and used for paneling as well as the ceiling.
“Working with the wood was really fun. I helped the guy mill it down, and that was a fun weekend project.”
Another ‘project’ of King’s, one that has lasted far longer than a weekend is his work with the Downtown Development Authority (DDA), an entity that has transformed Gray’s appearance significantly in recent years. King has been on that agency’s board since 2008, but he’s coming off at the end of this month.
“My term expired, and I just said I want to concentrate on my practice until I get finished practicing law,” he commented, adding that he has now been an attorney 41 years.
King stressed that the DDA has been very successful upgrading properties in Gray. As an example, what was Butler’s Garage is now Butler Hall, used for a variety of functions since the building was acquired and renovated.
He was skeptical at first. “It was a shop with a concrete floor and oil stains and everything. And there was some expert, a DDA expert out of Atlanta, who came down and said, ‘Oh, you’ve got a gold mine here.’ I’m thinking, ‘We’ve got a money pit here.’ But that thing was a great decision by the DDA because it is used a lot.”
When he is not on the job or working with DDA, King enjoys fishing, and he and Cindy belong to the Corvette Club, which is headquartered in Warner Robins. As the name suggests, members own Corvettes, and they meet once a month.
“Sometimes,” King shared, “we’ll just do like, have our meeting on Saturday morning, then we’ll do a little day trip, maybe go down and eat at the Mennonite place and then come back. But we all drive our cars, you know, in a procession. So, a bunch of old people acting like kids.”
