Road signs honoring Captain Herb Emory, Royal Marshall give comfort in traffic

Gravestones allow families to remember their loved ones in a field among the dead. But a very select few get tokens of their lives placed among the living.

Plaques, statues and names on buildings all are ways that certain distinguished people, living and dead, are honored. As, too, are road signs, which serve as warm reminders of important people and help soothe souls in mind-numbing traffic.

Captain Herb Emory, a traffic reporter, passed away in April 2014. He was a mentor and father figure to me, and a hero and a friend to countless others. He died just 10 days after the flyover ramps opened, connecting I-85 and Ga. 400. He championed those ramps being built, and the Georgia Department of Transportation just so happened to christen them on his birthday.

Less than a year after Emory’s death, former Georgia state Rep. Micah Gravley got a bill passed that named the two new ramps after the traffic reporter.

“Herb was so proud to finally meet Gov. (Nathan) Deal on the ramp shortly before his tragic death. I’m honored that the governor recognized all of Herb’s accomplishments in such a special way,” widow Karen Emory said.

Karen and I, along with a handful of my former WSB radio colleagues and others close to Captain Herb, went to Georgia’s state Capitol at the end of the 2015 session to hear a proclamation in his honor. There was another ceremony that summer where Karen received the honorary road sign, which still hangs proudly in a corner in her house with some other Captain Herb artifacts.

In December of that same year, Georgia named the newly rebuilt Lee Road bridge over I-20 in Douglas County after Emory, who lived for decades in the west metro county. Lee Road is named after former Douglas County Sheriff Earl Lee. Emory’s middle name just happened to be Lee.

“Herb and I spent 36 years in Douglas County. Every time I pass the sign, it reminds me of the wonderful years we had together and the many blessings we shared in Douglas County,” Karen Emory said.

Another WSB radio mainstay who left this world prematurely also received roadside honors. Longtime producer and show host Royal Marshall died suddenly from a heart attack, just as Emory did, in January 2011. His death rocked his family and touched the hundreds of thousands who listened to “The Neal Boortz Show” nationwide.

State legislators voted to name the downtown Atlanta intersection of Courtland Street and Ralph McGill Boulevard after Marshall in 2012.

I pass by Emory’s sign on the I-85 southbound ramp to Ga. 400 northbound every morning on the way to work. When I look over to it, I point or I thump my fist over my heart as a nod to a man I miss every day.

Courtland at Ralph McGill is an intersection I pass less often, but I recently got a chance to savor that token to Marshall. I was walking back from the Beltline to the Civic Center MARTA station and waited to cross the street, keeping my eyes on that sign and thinking of Marshall’s big laugh, debates with Boortz and his radio prowess.