By Glenn Harbison, News-Observer Publisher
“Friend” echoed repeatedly through the Georgia capitol last week as state leaders paid tribute to David Ralston, the late Speaker of the state House of Representatives.
The House declared a “Tribute to Speaker Ralston” Tuesday, March 14, on Day 33 of its current session. The day would have been Ralston’s 69th birthday.
Ralston was elected the 73rd Speaker of the House in January 2010. In his acceptance speech, he told his fellow representatives that if everyone was willing to “work together to do great things for Georgia, you will have no greater friend in the Office of the Speaker than me.”
Comments made last week proved he lived up to that promise.
Perhaps the story best exemplifying the importance Ralston placed on friendship is one told by Representative Rev. Mack Jackson, a democrat from Sandersville.
Jackson told the story at Ralston’s funeral service in Blue Ridge, and it was repeated by House Speaker John Burns last week.
The story goes that one Sunday morning Jackson showed up at his church to find two Georgia State Patrol cars in the parking lot. Jackson has joked that was not a good sign.
When the pastor entered the church, he was even more surprised to find Ralston waiting for him, even though the Fannin County Republican had promised to visit someday.
When the Reverend asked Ralston why he was there, the Speaker’s response was simple, “Because you’re my friend.”
“Speaker Ralston had a way of letting you know he cared about you,” Jackson told House members last week.
He used Luke, Chapter 10, which calls on us to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Jackson said Ralston lived up to that call, mirroring the Good Samaritan as he saw “all Georgians as his neighbor.”
Jackson remembered the Speaker as leaving “footprints on the sands of time” through his work for Georgia.
State leaders followed Jackson, taking turns to remember their friend.
Among them, Gov. Brian Kemp remembered, “He could say more in five minutes than any other person I’ve ever seen in politics.”
Of Ralston’s work, Kemp said, “We should build on his legacy.”
Spiro Amburn, the Speaker’s chief of staff, said that “humble beginnings...drove his thought process.”
Even though Ralston is now gone, Amburn said he would want leaders “to carry on and keep doing the state’s business.”
Burns said Ralston was “about public service, not politics ... He cared about his neighbor, he cared about my neighbor ... We will never forget him.”
State Senator Steve Gooch remembered what he admired most about Ralston was the Speaker would not jump to conclusions. He wanted to hear all sides of an issue.
Representative Jan Jones, House speaker pro-tempore, said, “Things that we made better for Georgia will live on because of him ... I miss him, but I still feel that he’s here.”
A video clip showed Ralston addressing the House after the passage of a particular bill with the words, “I saw an R and a D disappear and a Georgian take its place.” Ralston’s vision that all the House members could work together for the good of Georgia, the state he loved dearly had come true.
As Calvin Smyre, former Dean of the House concluded, “A giant pine tree has fallen in the State of Georgia.”