ROAD TRIP College Football and Civil War Relics
Coach Dooley and Craig Stevens.
by Craig Stevens Two things that rank high in southern cul-
ture are college football and the study of the Civil War. Those two things came together for my great October 3rd road trip weekend. I have been a member of the Civil War Trust
or its predecessor organization for about 20
years.The Trust (
www.civilwar.org) has saved approximately 40,000 acres of battlefield prop- erty and is a leader in education about the war. This is the third year in a row we have organ- ized a college football weekend with the key staff of the Trust. Previous trips were to Tuscaloosa and Baton Rouge, and this year we went to Athens, Georgia for the Georgia-Al- abama game . Jim Lighthizer, CEO; David Duncan, Devel-
opment Director; Frank Deluca, Major Gifts Of- ficer; and Paul Coussan, Legislative Relations; Mike Rudolph, legendary college football fan and I flew to Atlanta on Friday, October 2 de- spite predictions of heavy rain for the weekend. Once in Atlanta we went to the home of Bo and Eileen Dubose, our hosts for Friday evening. Bo is a former Trustee of the Civil War Trust and is a legendary collector of civil war artifacts. They also have a beautiful home overlooking the
Chattahoochee River, with trenches dug by General Johnston's confederates in 1864 still visable on their property. Back in the 50’s, Bo and his Father uncovered civil war artifacts all over the country before relic hunting laws came into play. They also acquired other significant collection items. Much of their collection was donated to the Atlanta History Center(
http://tinyurl.com/pxlfx8k) but they still have a significant collection left. Bo toured us through much of the collection and then he and his wife, Eileen treated us for dinner at the ven- erable Piedmont Driving Club, a beautiful pri- vate dining club in Atlanta dating back to 1887. (
www.drivingclub.org/ ) It was a wonderful evening, not soon to be forgotten. We arose on Saturday morning anticipating
sitting in the rain for the 3:30 game when we got a nice surprise. A text from none other than legendary Georgia coach Vince Dooley, a trustee of the Trust offered us an invitation to join him in his private box for the game. What an invitation! We arrived in Athens, did some tailgating with Georgia alum Barry Manson and his wife, who had graciously invited us to join them before the game, and then went to the pri- vate box for the game. Vince and his wife Barbara were great hosts,
and we met one of his daughters and some of his grandchildren as well. Unfortunately the game went south for the Bulldogs quickly as Al- abama dominated the game completely on their way to a 38 to 10 win. As of this writing Ala- bama is # 2 in the college rankings and obvi- ously has a great team. It was a wet day and sitting in the box was a
welcome relief, one that was not available to the armies who fought through Georgia in 1864. We flew back to the DC area on Sunday after a very memorable weekend. •
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