When confronting a potentially thorny subject, Bulloch County farmer Ray Davis employs some family wisdom passed down through generations.
The direction comes from his great-grandfather, Uriah Davis, next to whom the 70-year-old Ray will one day by buried in the cemetery at Brooklet Primitive Baptist Church .
“The best way to win an argument is to start off being right,” Uriah once told neighbors as they confronted a local issue, according to his grandson.
Ray Davis, whose roots are planted in Bulloch County’s sandy soil just as assuredly as the hundreds of acres of peanuts he grows every year in fields his family has worked for generations, believes he stands on the right side of a battle over the future of his community’s water supply.
Apparently so did voters in Davis’ county commission district, who cast nearly 63% of votes for him in the May Republican primary against eight-year incumbent and vice chairman Curt Deal.
With no Democratic opposition, the primary victory made Davis the de facto winner in the Nov. 5 General Election. And after Deal informed Gov. Brian Kemp in an Oct. 18 letter that that he was resigning immediately, the area’s four-member Georgia Superior Court stepped in and appointed Davis to the seat early.