DEL.ICIO.USWHAT EVER HAPPENED TO ... CATHY COX, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE
‘Zero’ chance of a comeback for Cathy Cox
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, April 20, 2009
Just a few years back, a lot of in-the-know people thought Bainbridge native Cathy Cox was destined to become Georgia’s first female governor.
But that was before she pulled one of the state’s most unlikely political vanishing acts, shedding her political ambition to take the helm of a small, private college about as far north as you can get and still be in Georgia.
JESSICA MCGOWAN/2007 photo
Cathy Cox once had her sights set on being Georgia’s governor. Now, she loves being president of Young Harris College.
The former high-profile Democratic secretary of state, Cox now presides over Young Harris College in Towns County, raising money for the United Methodist-affiliated school and overseeing its ambitious move from a two-year to a four-year institution.
“I think the good Lord had a hand in this, and I have absolutely loved it,” Cox said of her new life. “It’s nice to be out of the meanness and partisanship that permeates everything in state government today.”
Cox lost the 2006 Democratic primary to former Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor. Taylor subsequently was defeated by Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue, who leaves office next year after two terms.
With the 2010 governor’s race looming, supporters still approach Cox about getting back into the political fray. She would be a great governor, some tell her. The race is wide open this cycle, others point out. She politely tells them she has no interest.
“Is there any possibility she might return to the political stage?” Cox is asked repeatedly.
“Zero,” she tells a reporter during a recent interview.
Cox turned 50 this year. She and her lawyer husband, Mark Dehler, have sold their DeKalb County home and wake up these days in a place free of traffic and laced with mountain vistas. They are just a few miles south of the North Carolina border. The nearest grocery store is about 10 miles away. The nearest mall is more than an hour’s drive.
“There’s something liberating about reaching 50,” Cox said. “You realize life is too short to do something that makes you miserable. I don’t know that there’s anything that could drag me away from what I’m doing right now.”
Her conversations once centered on politics and the fishbowl buzz of the state Capitol, where her office was across from the governor’s. Today, she talks of little but education and her effort to grow her college.
Young Harris College now has 653 students, but there are plans to increase that to 1,200 to 1,500 in coming years. The college already has been accredited as a four-year school and its first graduating class begins this fall with the junior class. There are $80 million in new buildings either being constructed or on the drawing boards, Cox said.
“We’re not trying to be the UGA of the mountains,” she said. “We think what we do is very special.”
Cox said there are things she misses about her former life. She grew up in politics — the daughter of a state lawmaker, she spent part of her youth on the campaign trail with her dad. She was in office 17 years before making the jump to educator, first teaching briefly at the University of Georgia before becoming the 21st president of Young Harris.
“I enjoyed parts of the campaign, the parts that allowed me to meet people,” she said. “But having now been on the outside of the constant fighting and meanness, I cannot ever see going back to that.”
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