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You really have to wonder about "Bootsie" Calhoun's timing.
This grand Augusta lady, who past away last week, was special.
we found out how special she was back in 1974 when she announced that she was running for the Georgia Legislature.
Forget the fact that Augusta had never sent a woman to the Legislature.
Forget the fact that the seat she sought was held by incumbent Mackie Mulherin, of the large and well-known Augusta Mulherin family.
And forget the fact that she was running as a Republican, a party of such anemic influence in Georgia that it hadn't held any power in more than a century.
and forget that the nation's top Republican -- President Richard Nixon -- had just resigned in august 1974, in the midst of the Watergate scandal.
and with all that when Bootsie Calhoun was introduced at a political rally here at the Julian Smith Barbecue Pit
that August 1974, she was mistakenly identified as the wife of another political candidate. But she ended up surprising everybody
It really shouldn't have been a surprise. Anne Carter "Bootsie" Calhoun had a long list of active achievements
she graduated from the University of Georgia where she earned a psychology degree in 1944.
She was a longtime member of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, where she was president of the Women of Church.
She was also a member of the American Cancer Society, the Augusta Junior League, and past president of the Girl Scout Council of Eastern Georgia.
Bootsie, she got her nickname by the way from her older brother when he was three because he couldn't say Anne,
was no political novice. She was married to William C. "Billy" Calhoun
who over a 30 year period severed on the Augusta City Council probably longer than any man in its history
Bootsie had her own list of achievements. Called a "stalwart" Republican, she served on the platform committees at the party's national conventions in 1960 and 1964.
She also served as president of the Georgia Federation of Republican Women, secretary of the state party, and was a member of its executive committee.
Bootsie spent eight years on the Richmond County Board of Education before deciding in 1974 to run for the Georgia House of Representatives.
Her strategy, she explained, was to "outwork" her opponent.
When the ballots were finally counted early on the morning of Nov. 6, 1974, she had won the 88th District House seat by 49 votes.
And that's how Bootsie became the first woman from Augusta to go to the Georgia Legislature.
I'd say her timing was just about right.