As primary draws closer, 153 incumbent Darrel Ealum opens up

ALBANY — Like most politicians, Darrel Ealum has a story from his youth that resonates today in his adult life. He recalls picking cotton, cropping tobacco on the family farm in Red Level, Ala., and eventually leaving home to begin a career as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Ealum is running for a third term as District 153’s representative in the Georgia House and is pitted against political newcomer CaMia Hopson in the May 22 Democratic primary. He is a competitor. Sometimes that works in his favor; other times not so much.

“In my life the past is prologue. All my life I have been a person who needs to make things happen. I have always wanted to be at the vanguard of where the action is,” Ealum said Saturday. “I even remember as a young boy being in the field cropping tobacco and picking cotton. When we weighed up at suppertime, it was always my desire to weigh up the most cotton. I had an older brother ,and it was tough because he and I were both very competitive. In the tobacco field I wanted to be the one who cropped out first because then I got to help everybody else. I’d help the older guys who were working steady, and then we’d start up on another row and begin cropping back.

“That’s just a part of my nature, to be at the vanguard and make things happen. And that’s where I still am today.”

At 70, Ealum said he hopes he still has a lot of energy and life left in him.

“I’ve had a very successful life. Living in south Alabama we had no indoor bathroom,” he said. “My mother graduated from Troy State in 1965, and I graduated from Troy State in 1970. When I joined the Marines, I was initially an infantry platoon commander, then I was a division recon platoon commander, then I was an operations officer for force recon. Everything I have done at every stage in life has been to push myself to be a part of the best in life, in the military and in business.

“I grew up with nothing, nothing. A lot of folks have said to me ‘Your parents must have given you something.’ But I didn’t start with anything. Our business we have built has been because Miss Linda (his wife) and I worked very, very hard together. Now we have a business in four counties. Right now I want to spend the rest of my active life helping others and being in a position of service.”

Ealum said he is proud of his service to the community beginning in 2010 when he was elected the Dougherty County School Board, and then he unseated incumbent state Rep. Carol Fullerton in 2014.

“While on the school board, I led the initiative to get a digital device in the hands of every student in the DCSS,” Ealum said. “I was absolutely at the vanguard of the college and career academy. My first term in the House, my only issue was getting funding for a new fine arts building at Albany State, and in the next term I helped get $5 million in funding for renovations to the Carlton Construction Academy at Albany Tech. That wasn’t even on the radar. But because of the storms of January ‘17, Sen. Freddie Powell Sims, Rep. Gerald Greene and all of our delegation decided to make it happen.

“Moving the national guard armory to the Marine Base is another. Did I make it happen? No, but I was a part in making it happen.”

Asked if he thought the recent dust-up with the Marine base, Sims and Dougherty Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas over the use of photographs in perceived campaign literature would hurt him at the polls, Ealum paused for a long time before answering .

“You can’t dwell on what was perceived to be a misstep,” Ealum said. “My focus is on winning this campaign so I can continue to serve the people of southwest Georgia. Serving Albany and Dougherty County as a state representative has been the biggest honor of my life.”

Not bad for a kid who grew up picking cotton and cropping tobacco in south Alabama.