Grovetown council remembers 14-year member

Marjorie Adams' nameplate remained in front of an empty chair at Grovetown's semi-monthly city council meeting Monday night.

At age 79, Adams died Feb. 12 at the Brentwood Nursing Facility. Adams, a 14-year city council veteran, had a stroke Dec. 8.

"She will be dearly missed," Grovetown Mayor Dennis Trudeau said at the meeting.

City Clerk Shirley Beasley said Adams' city council seat will remain vacant until a special election is held to find a replacement to fill the rest of her term, which expires at the end of 2007.

Dates for qualifying, campaigning and the election have not been set, but Beasley said the special election will be held in July.

The City Council agreed to lower all city flags, including ones at the senior center and the Grovetown Museum, to half-staff through Wednesday and to allow city employees to leave work at 3 p.m. Tuesday to attend Adams' memorial service at 3:30.

Friends and family gathered at Bellevue Memorial Chapel Tuesday afternoon to pay their respects to the woman who city officials say always had the best interests of the city at heart.

"Our tombstone, it has our birth date and the day we die, and in between, there's a dash," said City Councilman David Daughtry, who sat next to Adams during her entire 14-year term on the council.

"That dash tells what our life is like, and Margie's dash could be three miles long and probably still not get everything in."

Adams loved children, though she and her husband, Hoyt, never had any children of their own, those who knew her said.

She organized the Grove-town Against Drugs Free Summer Day Camp 11 years ago and single-handedly funded the camp for many years by selling cakes and pies and selling Christmas trees in the cold.

Adams was very involved in the mentoring program at Grovetown Elementary School, where she was always present for Red Ribbon Week activities.

"She was always involved in that and touched all those children's lives and all her other children," Daughtry said.

Adams would mail care packages and phone cards to troops overseas.

She often visited wounded soldiers recuperating at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta, bringing along cakes.

"Margie was a special part of my life, and I'm going to miss her," Daughtry said. "She's going to be missed, and she's going to be loved."