The woman stepping up to the microphone looked wan but determined.
“I’ve been through a lot, and I have some more to go through, but I’m here.” she told the Cobb County Board of Elections on Jan. 13.
She then launched pointed questions and an analysis of the elections department’s absentee ballot handling.
Pamela Reardon may have been suffering from pancreatic cancer, but she wasn’t about to let that stop her from speaking her truth to power.
Reardon ruffled feathers sometimes as an unpaid East Cobb political activist. She worked on behalf of dozens of GOP candidates and the state and national Republican Party at large. Reardon was equally active with such conservative advocacy groups as the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
“Whatever she did, she did 100%,” said husband Tom, a fellow conservative and Republican Party member. “She became a tireless volunteer.”
A familiar figure from the Gold Dome to Cobb County government halls to people who answered their doors to find her equipped with a smile and campaign literature, Reardon was a significant presence on the county and state political landscape.
Pamela Reardon died Nov. 1 of cancer at the age of 71. She’s survived by husband, daughter Carling Arundel, son Casey Arundel, and a granddaughter.
Reardon was Canadian by birth and migrated to the northeast United States after a job transfer in the 1980s. A later move to Atlanta and a career change to real estate led her to Atlanta. She became an American citizen in 1996.
“She was someone who took her responsibilities as a citizen very seriously,” said Josh McKoon, the Georgia State Republican chair, who benefited from Reardon’s efforts to elevate him to the post. “I think that some of that had to do with the U.S. being a country she adopted.”
Seanie Zappendorf, second vice chair of the Georgia GOP, says she bonded with Reardon over their both being naturalized citizens and said they were drawn to the GOP because it espoused such values as limited government and lower taxes.
“She was born self-reliant,” says Tom Reardon. “And that’s a core tenet of the Republican Party.”
“She spoke out for people who didn’t have a voice and because she was very intelligent and down to earth and spoke from the heart a lot of people really liked her” said Christine Rozman, a friend.
In addition to keeping tabs on Cobb County issues such as the special purpose local option sales tax, elections and stormwater fee concerns, Reardon knocked on doors, made endless phone calls, and serving as a poll watcher and trainer for the GOP. At the state level, she buttonholed lawmakers at the Gold Dome and advocated on such issues as abortion, voter ID laws and election integrity.
“She had examples, evidence and records,” said Tom Reardon.
And she swept more than a few along in her wake.
Fellow activist Debbie Fisher recalls being “railroaded into” going to a party precinct caucus and emerging as a precinct officer. “I had no clue,” she said.
“I got a call from Pam Reardon saying, ‘if you’re going to be an officer you need to poll watch.’ I said I’d do it, and she assigned me to six precincts, and I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Reardon gave her a clutch of documents and told her to show up at the polls at 6 a.m.
Reardon volunteered for scores of campaigns, from both Trump campaigns and Gov. Brian Kemp’s runs, on down to the county level.
Reardon made a run at elected office herself last year, winning the GOP primary for Cobb County Commission District 2 in May of 2024 under a county-drawn commission district map, but was disqualified after a court ruling that switched to a state-drawn map, putting her outside the district.
As Rozman put it, “She was all about ‘something’s not right, what are you going to do about it?’”
A celebration of her life is set for 11 a.m. Jan. 9 at the Catholic Church of St. Ann, 4905 Roswell Road, Marietta.
