FNP 51 Page 34 felt just as strong about the Supreme Court telling us what we had to do down here as the rest of the bunch. I came in second out of a field of six, missed it by 176 votes. The government went back in, and it was the best time I ever spent in my life because I met folks I would've never known. Since 1968, I'm still friends with folks I met back then. P: As a newspaper, do you endorse or recommend political candidates? G: That's about the only time we get outside of local. We really don't do a lot of endorsing of local folks. Now, four years ago, I came down hard and heavy on three individuals. Two [were] running for re-election, and one was running for the first time, and we successfully whipped all three of them. P: Was this an ideological difference or incompetence? What was the issue? G: One of them was a county commissioner that I had helped get elected because we have our little closed-door meetings and see what we can do to put together. It's nothing they can help any of us financially with, but it's what we want is what's good for this county. We want somebody up there [who is] not going to put any more rules and regulations on us. It's a shame that you're not even able to do anything on your property. They totally eliminated property rights, you know. But we had a grant opportunity [of] getting an airport to come to Madison, about a $16,000,000 grant coming this way, and this one county commissioner just wound up letting it go to the ballot, and then it just went from bad to worse. So, we really and truly try to base what we do on what we think is going to be the absolute best thing for this county and the people [who are] in it. P: So, your opinion, one way or the other, is fairly influential in this county? G: I don't know about that. I'm just a country boy that stuck it out. P: You were an observer at the execution of John Spenkelink. Tell me a little about him and what that experience was like. G: I put on a lot of socials. My motto: if you don't wake up to a party, start one. Consequently, I try to stay in very good with all the local and area state politicians, and I wound up getting on as a state witness to that execution. I've always believed in capital punishment. Swift and severe justice, I think that's an absolute key. In fact, I've run in the paper several times in my editorials, if we want to stop crime, we need to execute all criminals and their lawyers. I went down as a state witness, and, of course, it was postponed a time or two. I sat there on the front row. In fact, I sat next to Bobby Brantley, [who] became the lieutenant governor. Bobby and I have remained friends over the years. You're not allowed to take cameras in, so I took my art pad in and I sat there and sketched out the execution. Of course, you have the twelve news media witnesses behind the twelve state witnesses. One of them was the well-known writer from the Atlanta Constitution [who] died here last year, Lewis Grizzard. Anyway, he wrote a