Developer Earl Patton, a former state senator and past board chairman of the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, was killed Wednesday in one of the storms that passed through Georgia.
Friends said he was alone at his Rabun County home when it was struck by a tornado, part of a group of twisters that left 15 people dead in Georgia.
In an email Thursday to members of the Rotary Club of Atlanta, of which Patton had been a member since 1995, the organization's president, Linda Thomason Glass, said, "Earl was at his lake house last night when the tornado came through, demolished the house, and took his life."
The funeral will be held at 2:30 p.m. May 4 at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta.
Patton, 83, was a Republican state senator in the 1960s at a time when the GOP was in the political wilderness in the state. He went on to develop hotels in Atlanta and Cobb County and also served as president of the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce.
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