PROUDLY
SELLING THOROGOOD
AMERICAN MADE BOOTS
AND
MORE!
928 Veterans Memorial Hwy SW
Mableton • 678-265-8181
@Barnesstoremableton
2022 | FACTBOOK 31
Johnny Isakson Gov. Roy Barnes
Retired NBA all-star Dale Ellis was a three-point sharpshooter
who played throughout the NBA and at Marietta
High School. Josh Smith, who attended McEachern for
three years, had a 13-year career, including nine seasons
in Atlanta.
Former Pope softball star Kelly Barnhill was the 2017 USA
Collegiate Softball Player of the Year while at the University
of Florida and won the ESPY as the Women’s Collegiate
Athlete of the Year.
Cody Runnels turned a successful wrestling career at
Lassiter High School into years of professional wrestling. He
wrestles as Cody Rhodes and serves as an executive for the
new All Elite Wrestling organization. Rhodes has also had
a few stints as an actor, making appearances on the Netflix
superhero show “Arrow” in its fifth and seventh seasons.
Former Sprayberry wrestler Austin Watson has achieved
great notoriety with World Wrestling Entertainment under
the name of Xavier Woods.
Politics
Former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson lives in east Cobb. He
retired at the end of 2019 due to health challenges related to
Parkinson’s disease after 45 years of public service.
Former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes grew up in Mableton
and lives in Marietta, where his law firm is based.
Former Attorney General Sam Olens lives in Marietta and
now works as an attorney for the global law firm Dentons.
Other notable political locals include former U.S. Speaker
of the House Newt Gingrich, former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr and
Gen. Lucius D. Clay, a hero of the Berlin Airlift.
The late Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Harris
Hines spent most of his life in Marietta, where a bridge was
dedicated in his honor in 2019.
Carolyn Meadows, an east Cobb native, is president of the
National Rifle Association.
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo Jr.
grew up in Marietta. McAdoo is notable for serving as United
States president for one day while President Woodrow
Wilson and everyone else in the line of succession was out of
Washington for Christmas.
One of the co-founders of the Parent Teacher Association
of America, Alice McLellan Birney, was born in Marietta.