Wednesday, January 29, 2003
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Wednesday, January 29, 2003 |
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2 Fayette pioneers honored by Chamber as 'DreamBuilders' By JOHN THOMPSON
Two residents who personify Fayette County received moving tributes Saturday night during the Fayette County Chamber Of Commerce's annual banquet. Huie Bray and Carolyn Cary received the DreamBuilder Award for their long hours and lifetime of service in building Fayette County from a rural county to the shining star of the Atlanta region. In 1946, Huie Bray returned home from the Navy and started his mission of making Fayette County a better place to live. The only paved road at the time was Ga. Highway 54 coming into the county. Bray wanted to work in his home county and started a construction business in 1947. Once he started his business, Bray joined the Home Builders Association of Atlanta. "I was the only one in there from Fayette County," he said. He sat next to Bill Wainwright at the meeting, who was president of Atlanta Federal bank. Bray said he kept pestering the bank president to provide loans to Fayette County for homes. When the bank opened an office in College Park, Bray was able to get the first home loan in the county for a house on New Hope Place. As his business grew, Bray focused on creating a better quality of life for the county. He helped write the first zoning and building codes in the county and was one of the first volunteer fireman in the county. Throughout the last 50 years, Bray saw his vision of Fayette County come true as one of the best counties in the state to live. During the 1960s, Carolyn Cary moved south from Ohio and created a legacy in the county that still continues today. With an appetite for getting involved, Cary was one of a handful of people that helped start the Chamber. "It was started with an absolute grass-roots organization. Just a handful of people business people who thought it was important and we just kept getting together until we worked it out and had written bylaws and gotten a state charter. And our first meeting was in the spring of 1967," she said. Cary helped the chamber going by helping to stage annual potluck dinners at the Masonic Lodge and lure speakers to the group. "You'd call people in Atlanta 'And it's where? Oh!' And we just couldn't get anyone to come, and of course, they'd find out it's a potluck and they weren't impressed at all," she said. But with Cary's grit and determination, the Chamber continued to grow. "I just would like people to remember that we started out with maybe 50 members and our annual meeting was a potluck at a Masonic Lodge and just look where we are now," she said. In addition to her work with the chamber, Cary chaired the county's sesquicentennial in 1971 and cofounded the Fayette County Historical Society in 1972. She also edited and help write the first history of the county in 1977 and was named the Citizen of the Year for her efforts. Cary was also one of the leaders in getting the courthouse rebuilt after it was firebombed in 1983 and carried an Olympic torch through the streets of Fayetteville in 1996. "Anything I've learned about Fayette County, I like to pass it along-especially with school children. And there are so many people here now who aren't even from the South that it pleases me to be able to pass along the county's history," she said.
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