Interview with George Hooks, March 26, 2018Collection: Two-Party Georgia Oral History Project |
Dublin Core
Subject
Description
George Hooks was born May 9, 1945 in Sumter County, Georgia. He graduated from Auburn University and holds an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Mercer University. Hooks won election to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1980 and served as Assistant Floor leader for Governor Joe Frank Harris. He served five terms in the house before winning election to the Georgia State Senate in 1990. Hooks served as chair of Rules and Appropriations committees and sat on several others including the Senate-House Budgetary Responsibility Committee, the Senate-House Legislative Services Committee, and the Reapportionment Committee. Hooks was the Dean of the Georgia State Senate when he retired in 2013. Hooks has operated Tommy Hooks Agency, an insurance and real estate company, in Americus and worked as a government affairs consultant with RTA Strategy in Roswell.
Hooks discusses growing up in South Georgia, attending Auburn University, and his early political career. He talks about his first political campaign as well as serving under Speaker Tom Murphy in the Georgia House of Representatives. Hooks moves on to his time in Georgia State Senate, where he served from 1991 until 2013. He discusses efforts to change the Georgia state flag and the state’s transition from Democratic to Republican control in the early 2000s. He also gives his thoughts on Governor Zell Miller, who had recently died. The latter portion of the interview includes Hooks’s analysis of Georgia political history, challenges facing rural Georgia, and future of two-party competition in the state.
Hooks discusses growing up in South Georgia, attending Auburn University, and his early political career. He talks about his first political campaign as well as serving under Speaker Tom Murphy in the Georgia House of Representatives. Hooks moves on to his time in Georgia State Senate, where he served from 1991 until 2013. He discusses efforts to change the Georgia state flag and the state’s transition from Democratic to Republican control in the early 2000s. He also gives his thoughts on Governor Zell Miller, who had recently died. The latter portion of the interview includes Hooks’s analysis of Georgia political history, challenges facing rural Georgia, and future of two-party competition in the state.
Date
2018-03-26
Identifier
RBRL425TPGA-046
Coverage
Hyperlink Item Type Metadata
Location
Duration
66 minutes
URL
Files
Collection
Citation
George Hooks and Ashton Ellett, “Interview with George Hooks, March 26, 2018,” UGA Special Collections Libraries Oral Histories, accessed November 21, 2024, https://russelllibraryoralhistory.org/RBRL425TPGA/RBRL425TPGA-046.