Local & State Headlines

Art Searles dies at 64

• Democratic Party officials are looking for someone to run for the late Art Searles’ County Commission seat.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — Dougherty County Commissioner Arthur Searles died suddenly Tuesday, leaving a vacancy in office and a 70-year-old community newspaper without its guiding force.

Searles, 64, died around noon Tuesday at an Albany hospital after suffering what appeared to be a heart attack, Dougherty County Coroner Emma Quimbley said.

News traveled quickly Tuesday and brought longtime friends and political allies to the South Jackson Street office of the Southwest Georgian, the weekly black newspaper Searles’ father, A.C. Searles, first joined in 1938 as editor and publisher.

A good friend of Searles, Dougherty School Board member James Bush, said he and Searles had lunch together every Friday.

“We were very close. His friendship will be missed immensely. We pray that his wife and his siblings, his children and all his friends, their lives have all been blessed for Mr. Searles,” Bush said.

Searles’ wife, Giselle, and a young child reside in Albany. Two grown daughters live in Atlanta.

Searles always “tried to work right” and leave the world “better than it already was,” Bush said.

“We were more than friends. We were just like brothers,” said Rance Pettibone, whom Searles was backing for an state House seat given up this year by Freddie Powell Sims.

“He was like art itself — he could make things happen. His name itself is a picture,” said Dougherty County Commissioner Muarlean Edwards, who served alongside Searles since she was elected last year.

“He and I were together most of yesterday,” Edwards said. She and Searles rode together to the commission’s tour of Albany’s remodeled Bridge House Monday, and he’d just spoken at a friend’s funeral Friday, she said.

“He sort of brought a balance to the commission. He was good at giving me the information and letting me make my own decision.”

Albany lwayer Johnnie Graham said Searles’ sudden death was “horrific, in terms of all the personal loss.

“But actually, the guy was principled, and that’s so hard to find nowadays, somebody who just doggedly sticks to his principles. You might not have agreed with what he did or his methods, but at least you understood that he was acting on principles, not out of some agenda, petty policy or anything like all of that.”

State Rep. Winfred Dukes, D-Albany, appeared at the newspaper office as soon as office manager Alice Robinson told him Searles was gone.

“In many segments of the community, we know this is a great loss, because he truly loved Albany, he loved Dougherty County,” Dukes said.

“He’s the kind of guy who says what he feels; even though he was in politics, he didn’t make it sound politically correct. It was what it was, and when he spoke it he spoke it as he saw it. And herein lies the name of his column, ‘I said it.’ ”

This past spring, Searles in his weekly column accused sheriff’s candidate Benita Childs of trying to divide the black vote.

Searles took over ownership of the Southwest Georgian from his father, after moving back to his Albany hometown from Atlanta in 1996.

Though dedicated to his newspaper, where Dukes regularly contributed a column, Searles also was dedicated to his wife and made Wednesday “her day,” Dukes said.

“He was so involved in his community and he was faithful, but he definitely would make Wednesday his wife’s day, and he would look forward to that,” he said.

Todd Shider, a barber in a shop next door to the newspaper, said Searles “was like a father figure to all of us at the barber shop.”

Southwest Georgian office manager Alice Robinson burst into tears, then set about planning to get the Southwest Georgian built, printed and to readers today, on its regular schedule.

“We’re doing it. I have someone who’s going to lay it out. I basically know what goes in the paper; where the ads need to go and all that. Art wouldn’t want it any other way.”

As office manager, she typed up much of the newspaper’s copy and proofread pages that Searles laid out.

Today’s edition of the Southwest Georgian will include news of Searles’ death on the front page, and it won’t be the last, Robinson said.

“It’s been 70 years and there are enough people here that care about this paper,” she said. “If I have anything to do with it, to say about it, it will continue.”

New Southwest Georgian photo correspondents Minister Gary and Mike Atkins said they’d met with Searles around midnight Monday.

“I just got the news,” Atkins said. “We were hoping it wasn’t true.”

The night before, Searles was “telling us to keep it going, what we’re doing,” Gary said.

Searles’ colleagues in county government were shocked to learn of his death.

“Yesterday was a normal commission day, and the entire commission went down to the Bridge House and toured it and we were laughing and joking. And today he’s gone,” said Jeff Sinyard, chairman of the County Commission.

Searles was a fiscally conservative member of Dougherty’s finance committee who was dedicated to Dougherty County government, Sinyard said.

“Although Art and I didn’t agree on certain issues, we had a strong respect for each other and we became friends,” he said.

Dougherty Administrator Richard Crowdis said Searles “will be missed by staff” and many others in the community.

“Art was a very focused individual; he was very objective; he worked well with the all the commissioners,” Crowdis said.

Family members were awaiting word from Searles’ brother, a diver traveling in Indonesia, to set a date for the funeral, to be handled by Elliott Funeral Home, Robinson said.

As the only candidate to qualify for the commission seat this spring, Searles’ death leaves a vacancy on the Nov. 4 ballot that by state law must be filled immediately, state Democratic Party officials said.

The state party will have the name of someone to replace Searles on the November ballot today, party spokesman Martin Matheny said.

“We’re talking to local Democrats that we know and trust on the ground,” Matheny said. “We look for somebody who’s going to to a good job as a candidate, represent their community and their district well.”