[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 407-408]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1230
                   PAYING RESPECTS TO NEIL RATCHFORD

  (Mr. CARTER of Georgia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay respects to 
Neil Ratchford, who passed away peacefully on Sunday at the age of 87.
  Mr. Ratchford was born on November 1, 1928. He grew up and lived his 
entire 87 years in Guyton, Georgia.
  He will be remembered as the sausage man because he made hot meat 
sausage, a family tradition since 1898. He

[[Page 408]]

continued this family tradition until 1999, when he passed along the 
business to his son-in-law.
  Throughout his life, he stayed community- and family-minded, 
believing that the best committee meetings were those with three 
members and two absent.
  For over 50 years, along with his friend Lawton Nease, he spearheaded 
the 5th Sunday Men's Breakfast, which brings fathers and their sons 
together for a morning of faithful worship at the Guyton United 
Methodist Church.
  He was a man of few words but believed you should make your words 
count. In the end, he joins his wife, Mary Olive, having lived a long, 
fruitful life raising four children and two grandsons, who now attend 
my alma mater, the University of Georgia.
  My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

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