[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 104 (Monday, June 22, 2026)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E597-E598]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




HONORING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF THE HONORABLE LAWRENCE COHEN ''LARRY'' 
                              WALKER, JR.

                                 ______
                                 

                      HON. SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR.

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, June 22, 2026

  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart, and with a 
gratitude that runs deeper than these few words can carry, to honor the 
life of a giant of Georgia public service, a peerless gentleman, and a 
man I was blessed to call my colleague and my friend--the Honorable 
Lawrence Cohen ``Larry'' Walker. Jr., of Perry, Georgia.
  Larry passed away peacefully at his home on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, 
surrounded by the family he loved, at the age of 84. A funeral service 
to celebrate his remarkable and purpose-filled life was held on Sunday, 
June 14,

[[Page E598]]

2026, at the Perry United Methodist Church. Some losses are not just 
the loss of a man. They are the closing of an era.
  Larry Walker was born on March 9, 1942, in Perry, Georgia, to the 
late Lawrence Cohen Walker, Sr., and the late Hilda Gray Walker. He was 
a son of Houston County from his first breath to his last--a native, a 
lifelong resident, and a fierce and faithful champion of his hometown 
for every one of his 84 years. He graduated from Perry High School in 
1960, where his classmates, even then, saw what the rest of Georgia 
would come to know, and elected him Senior Class President. He went on 
to the University of Georgia, where he earned both his Bachelor of 
Business Administration and his Juris Doctorate in 1965--and where he 
became, and remained until his final day, one of the most devoted 
Bulldogs the good Lord ever made.
  Mr. Speaker, consider what this young man did with the years that 
followed. In January of 1966, at just 24 years of age, Larry Walker was 
appointed the very first Municipal Court Judge in the history of Perry. 
Twenty-four years old, sitting in judgment, trusted by his neighbors. 
In 1975, he was appointed Perry City, Attorney--a charge he and his 
beloved brother David would carry together for 40 years. Forty years. 
Two brothers, serving one city, side by side. That is not a job. That 
is a covenant.
  In 1972, the people of Houston County sent Larry Walker to the 
Georgia House of Representatives, to fill the seat left vacant by a 
young man named Sam Nunn, who was on his way to the United States 
Senate. And there, under the Gold Dome, Larry Walker became a legend. 
He served 32 years in that chamber--and for 16 of them, half his entire 
tenure, he served as House Majority Leader. Sixteen years carrying the 
burden of leadership, holding the floor, holding the line, holding 
people together.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, allow me a personal word. I came to the Georgia 
House of Representatives in 1977. And it was there, as a young 
legislator finding my footing, that I came to know Larry Walker. We did 
not always come from the same place. We did not always see every issue 
through the same eyes. But I tell you what I learned from that man 
across those years: Larry Walker never once made a difference of 
opinion into a difference of respect. He could disagree with you on 
Tuesday and break bread with you on Wednesday and have your back on 
Thursday. He believed--he truly believed--that we were all sent there 
to do the people's work, and that the people deserved leaders who could 
find the higher ground together. He taught a whole generation of us how 
to do this work with grace. I am a better public servant today because 
Larry Walker showed me how it was done.
  And he had something to show for it. You see it when you drive into 
Perry today and you see the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter 
standing tall--that is Larry Walker's vision made real. That community 
draws families and livelihoods and pride from Frito-Lay--that came to 
Perry because Larry Walker willed it there. He did not just hold an 
office. He built things. He left his hands' print on the soil of his 
home, and that print will outlast us all.
  After his service in the General Assembly, Larry was elected to the 
Georgia Transportation Board and was later appointed by Governor Sonny 
Perdue to the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia--
still serving, still giving, still working for a state he loved. 
Through it all, in every chamber and on every board, Larry Walker was 
known for the rarest gift in public life: the ability to build 
relationships, to bring people together, and to work through their 
differences for the good of Georgia and for the good of his beloved 
Perry.
  But Mr. Speaker, if you had asked Larry Walker who he was, he would 
not have started with any of that. He would have told you he was a 
husband. A father. A man of faith. He was a lifelong and active member 
of Perry Methodist Church, where he and his wife Janice sat together in 
the Pathfinders Sunday School Class. He gave himself to the Perry 
Kiwanis Club, and he helped found Crossroads Bank, which grew into 
Security Bank, because he believed in his community's future enough to 
invest in it himself.
  And oh, how he loved Janice. In 1964, Larry married Janice Knighton--
the love of his life--and they shared 61 years together. Sixty-one 
years, Mr. Speaker. They raised four children--Larry III, Wendy, 
Russell. and John Gray--and every one of them still calls Houston 
County home. Think on that a moment. In a restless world that scatters 
families to the four winds, Larry and Janice built a place so full of 
love that their children never wanted to leave it. He was a devoted 
family man who treasured nothing more than the activities of his nine 
grandchildren and his three great-grandchildren--there in the 
bleachers, there at the livestock shows, there for every one of them.
  He loved simple, sacred things. He loved working on the farm 
alongside Janice. He loved hunting dove and quail in the Georgia 
mornings and sharing his fishing ponds with anybody who'd come sit a 
while. He loved his dog Lizzy and he loved his cows. He loved watching 
the youth show their livestock at the Ag Center he helped create. He 
loved his Perry Panthers and his Westfield Hornets, and of course, 
always and forever, his Georgia Bulldogs.
  That, Mr. Speaker, is a life. Not a career--a life. Whole, and 
rooted, and good. Larry was predeceased by his parents, and by his 
brother David--his partner of 40 years--and by brothers-in-law Bob 
Kelly and Jeff Knighton. He leaves behind his devoted wife of 61 years, 
Janice Knighton Walker; his children Larry III and Adrienne, Wendy and 
Bob, Russell and Krissy, and John Gray and Sharon; his nine 
grandchildren: his three great-grandchildren; his sister Lynda, his 
brother Charlie, and a host of family and friends across Georgia who 
loved him.
  And Mr. Speaker, the truest measure of a man is found not only in 
what he built, but in what he past on. So let it be recorded that the 
Walker name still answers the roll call beneath the Gold Dome: Larry's 
son, Larry Walker, Ill, now serves in the Georgia General Assembly--the 
very institution his father loved and shaped--carrying his daddy's 
legacy of honorable service forward into a new generation. What a gift, 
to a father, to know the work goes on.
  Mr. Speaker, the Book of Proverbs tells us that ``the memory of the 
just is blessed.'' Larry Walker was a just man. He kept faith with his 
God, with his family, with his hometown, and with the people he served. 
He showed us that you can hold great power and still hold great 
kindness; that you can disagree without dishonor; that a life lived 
close to home can touch the whole of a State.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues in the United States House of 
Representatives to join my wife Vivian and me, along with the more than 
765,000 people of Georgia's Second Congressional District in honoring 
the life of the Honorable Larry Walker, Jr. to Janice, to his children 
and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and to the whole community 
of Perry that he loved so well: the prayers of this House are with you. 
You did not lose him. You will carry him--in every fairground he built, 
in every quail field at dawn, in every Bulldog Saturday, in every 
kindness he ever showed. Heaven has gained a gentleman, and Georgia 
will not soon see his like again.
  May he rest in peace and rise in glory. And may God bless the memory 
of Larry Walker.

                          ____________________