Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 3129In 1906-10 he served as county court solicitor; was in the Georgia House ofRepresentatives in 1909-12; elected judge of the County Court in the latteryear and resigned to accept the seat in Congress to which he was elected inNovember, 1914, to fill an unexpired term. Judge Vinson was re-elected tothe Sixty-fourth Congress which concludes its last session in 1917.JOHN RANDALL WALKER. The representative in Congress from theEleventh Georgia District, John R. Walker, is a native of Blackshear, PierceCounty, that state, born February 23, 1874. In 1898 he graduated from thelaw department of the University of Georgia and in 1900 began practice atValdosta. He served in the lower house of the Legislature in 1907-08, andhas been a member'of the Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth congresses, his secondterm expiring in 1917.PROF. THOMAS J. WOOFTER, who has been dean of the School of Education, University of Georgia, and held the chair of philosophy and educationin that institution since 1903, has taken a leading part in the cause of southern education for many years. He is a Virginian, born at Spencer, September 2, 1864. In 1881 he graduated from the West Virginia Normal School,and in 1888 earned the degree of A. B. and LL. B. from the university ofthat state. The University of Nashville conferred an A. M. upon him in 1893;from 1895 to 1900 he pursued post-graduate work at the University of Chicago for several years, which brought him a Ph. D., with LL. D. from theIllinois College of Law in 1909. For a year before his 'graduation from theState Normal School of West Virginia and for several years afterward, hetaught in both country and city schools and in 1885-88 served as principalof that institution. From 1889 to 1903 he was successively superintendent ofschools of West Point, Mississippi, professor of mathematics at Mercer University and director of the Normal and Industrial College, at Milledgeville,Georgia. In 1903, as stated, he assumed his present post. He is a member ofall the leading educational associations, state, southern and national, and tooka leading part in the late contest for the Peabody fund, through which alarge permanent endowment was won for the College of Education for Teachers in the South.HON. ALVIN D. GALE. Formerly judge of the City Court of Brunswick,Judge Gale has for twenty years been an active member of the bar of theBrunswick district and along with his reputation for ability and success inhandling litigation he has those qualities of integrity and high mindednesswhich are so essential to the true success of the lawyer.Born at Albany, Georgia, May 5,1871, Judge Gale is a son of Dr. Alvin D.and Margaret Amanda (Hoyt) Gale. Both parents were born in New Hampshire, where they were reared and married, and coming South in the earlydays they lived a short _ time in South Carolina and later in the same year,1842, located, at Albany, Georgia. Doctor Gale was a doctor of dental surgery,and in 1877 removed to Townes County, Georgia, and to Brunswick in 1881.During the war he was a commissary sergeant in the Confederate army, wasstationed at Macon and during the Battle of Atlanta was active in the defenseof the city. He died in 1896 aged seventy-three, while his wife passed awayin 1904 aged sixty-seven.The eleventh in a family of thirteen children, Judge Gale attended thepublic schools at Brunswick and Valdosta and finished in the Glynn Academya,t Brunswick. He worked his way to professional advancement, having acquired stenography and working as a stenographer in the law offices of Sims& Bennett and Bradley & Bennett until qualifying for admission to the bar in1896. Since that year he has found his ability in demand as a lawyer, andfrom 1904 until 1908 he served as judge of the City Court of Brunswick,