Clay Murphey heads up SPLOST projects for Bibb County now, but back in the 1980s, he traveled the world with then-Vice President George H.W. Bush.
His job was to set up secured telephone lines for the VP to keep him connected.
“When you talked to her, there was nobody more important than you at that time in her eyes,” Murphey said about former First Lady Barbara Bush. “She made you feel like you were the most important person in the room.”
It's been more than 30 years, but Murphey's memories of President Bush and his wife are still crystal clear.
“It is hard for me, even after having been there, to imagine politicians today being that approachable,” Muphey said. “To them, it was it was a responsibility, it was an obligation to serve, and it was their turn.”
He says he traveled across the country and even to foreign lands with the Bush family, but some of his fondest memories were at the family's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine.
“They were very down-home people with the ability to have a picnic you've never met,” Murphey said. “To cook for them when you're the Vice President seems a little odd, but that was who they were.”
Murphey says the former First Lady was easy to talk to. He remembers one conversation when they were wiring a boat for the Secret Service to use.
“She can barely see over the side of the boat asking us what we’re doing because the boat was still on a trailer,” Murphey said. “We told her. She said where did the boat come from, and we said the DEA. Her comment was just as flat as she could be, ‘Well, George isn’t going to like that, I’m going to have to talk to him.’ He wasn’t happy because the Secret Service boat was bigger than theirs.”