[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 119 (Tuesday, July 24, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1605-E1606]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO MRS. BARBARA SCRUGGS

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. LYNN A. WESTMORELAND

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 24, 2007

  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Speaker, in June, my hometown of Grantville, 
GA, lost one of its treasures upon the death of Mrs. Barbara Scruggs, 
who was an activist, a public servant, a devoted wife and mother, a 
patron of the arts and an American patriot. She was 75.
  Born in Pennsylvania, Barbara wasn't a Georgia native. She chose 
Georgia as her home and loved the state and Coweta County with the zeal 
of a convert.
  After graduating from nursing school in 1954, Barbara eventually 
served her Nation as a nurse in the U.S. Air Force in 1957 and 1958. It 
was during that time that she fell in love with a fighter pilot named 
William Gordon Scruggs, whom she married in 1957. They eventually moved 
to Coweta County and raised three children together there.
  Growing up in Pennsylvania, Barbara's parents had raised her as a 
Republican, but when she moved South, Georgia was conservative but it 
was a one-party state controlled at every level by Democrats. Barbara 
became a politically active Republican in Coweta County at a time when 
no one in Georgia had ever heard of such a thing. To paraphrase a 
country song, Barbara Scruggs was a Republican when being a Republican 
wasn't cool.
  She always followed politics closely and got involved. She took 
leadership positions in the Coweta County Republican Party and the 
Coweta County Republican Women's Club, handling the latter's newsletter 
duties for many years. Prominent in the Georgia GOP--described as a 
volunteer always willing to do more than her share--she was selected as 
a delegate to the 2000 Republican National Convention, where she 
proudly donned patriotic attire and donated to future first lady Laura 
Bush's book drive for local libraries.

[[Page E1606]]

  In 1984, she moved from activist to public servant. She ran for and 
won a seat on the Coweta County school board. As a board member for 12 
years, Barbara saw the ``big picture,'' said former Superintendent 
Bobby Welch, adding that she had a passion for improving opportunities 
for students, faculty and staff.
  In Barbara's heart, politics had to share space with her love of art. 
She indulged this interest later in life, her husband said, as she 
found she had more free time. She became a big supporter of the Newnan-
Coweta Art Association. In fact, she was attending a reception for an 
exhibition opening at the Centre for the Performing and Visual Arts on 
the night that she died. ``She died, if you have to go, under perfect 
circumstances, doing the thing she loved so much,'' her husband told 
the Newnan Times-Herald.
  Barbara Scruggs gave her all for her community. She'll be missed in 
Grantville and throughout Coweta County, but I consider this a personal 
loss as well. Throughout my career in elected office, I could always 
count on Barbara's support. My wife Joan and I have kept the Scruggs 
family in our thoughts and prayers this summer.

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