Gubernatorial candidate heading for Fairburn,
styles himself after legendary Goat Man

By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@TheCitizenNews.com

Within the next few days if you're driving in or around Fairburn, you may encounter a herd of 57 goats following a bearded man wearing a white jacket and using a six-foot length of PVC pipe as a shepherd's staff.

Self-styled "goat man" Mitchell Williams says he's not kidding ... he's running for governor.

Tuesday, he headed up his herd and moved out of Fayette County after law enforcement officials there refused to let him drive the herd through traffic-choked downtown Fayetteville. He was sighted near Mundy's Mill Road Wednesday, but his ultimate goal, he says, is to get to Fairburn where he has access to a camp site.

He is using the goat parade, he said, to draw attention to his campaign. His platform is based on one issue: converting Georgia to "true" time and doing away with current standard times.

Calling his campaign "The True Time Parade," he has been working his way south since Jan. 14. "Georgia needs a true time standard," he told The Citizen, "not the standard they're using now, what I call Mickey Mouse time."

Instead of Eastern Standard or Eastern Daylight Time, each part of the state should be on "true" time, measured by its longitude, he said. Sunrise reaches the eastern parts of the state long before it touches the western border, Williams argued. So school children have to board buses more and more in the dark the farther west they live.

"Our true time would be about 37 minutes after Eastern Standard Time," he said.

Using his standard, he said, school children would be able to board buses and walk to school in daylight, preventing injury and death. "This is going to be a hot, hot issue," he said.

Williams styles himself a modern day version of the famous Goat Man, Chess McCartney, who traveled the Southeast for more than four decades.

The original Goat Man was a legend in his time. From the '40s into the '80s, McCartney drove his goat-drawn wagon north in the summer and south in the winter, preaching to large crowds along the way. He was a familiar sight to anyone frequenting U.S. Highway 41.

Williams said he has found officials in most areas supportive of his parade. In one town, city fathers even joined the parade to bask in the glare of publicity that the entourage tends to attract.

But when he crossed from Henry into Fayette on his way to Fairburn last week, officers warned him that driving his herd on the public road was illegal. Sheriff's Department officials found a willing homeowner just south of Fayetteville who had previously raised goats himself, and Williams settled in there for a few days, hoping officers would change their minds.

But they didn't, concerned over the safety problems that might come from having 57 goats herded along the right of way, said Maj. Ken Rose. "The law prohibits the running of livestock all over the roads in Fayette County," he said, but added the Sheriff's Department had no desire to arrest Williams. Tuesday, he turned the herd around and headed into Clayton County with plans to skirt the borders of Fayette and get to Fairburn that way.

Williams' decision to run for governor may have been a case of necessity being the mother of invention.

He drove school buses in the city of Atlanta for 15 years before retiring recently and going into the goat business full-time, he said. He built up his herd and hired the goats out to Fort Yargo State Park in Winder, to keep the underbrush cleared out.

But the park yanked his contract, he said, leaving him with nowhere to go, so Williams did what any thinking person would do under the circumstances ... he decided to run for governor.

After wintering in Fairburn, he said, he hopes to head out to south Georgia in the spring to continue his campaign.

Making about eight or nine miles a day, Williams herds his goats until he finds a stopping place, then hitchhikes back to where his RV is parked and brings the camper to where the goats are bedded down. "I live wherever the goats are at," he said.

He has run twice before for governor, and twice for Atlanta mayor, he said. Priding himself on spending no money on his campaigns, he brags that he did spend $23.40 in one mayoral race and got his highest vote total ever: 261 votes.

The visibility of his goat parade has brought several offers of campaign contributions, Williams said, adding he is thinking about making a more serious run for governor this time, possibly even getting an official place on the Republican Primary ballot for 2002.

He had one contribution once before, he said. "A man offered a substantial donation and said it was so I could see a psychiatrist," he chuckled.