Emmett Sellars grew up poor in the south Georgia town of Tifton. He was eight or nine when his father was crippled in an accident and unable to work. The son, the middle child of four, did what he could to help the family, which included selling roasted peanuts at the local train depot.
After graduating from Tifton High, the young Sellars caught a bus to Atlanta. He earned a bachelor's degree in business from Georgia State University. In 1952, he graduated from the Woodrow Wilson College of Law.
While in school, Mr. Sellars took a job as an account clerk in Atlanta for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., and in a nearly 40-year career he rose to international vice president in charge of retail sales worldwide. Mr. Sellars reported to Doug Hill, a retired Goodyear executive who lives in Vero Beach, Fla.
"He had done the same thing for the domestic side of the company," Mr. Hill said. "He held a big and important job, and he was very good at what he did. What can I say? He was a very good, all-around straight-up guy."
Through the years, Mr. Sellars had endured prostrate cancer, throat cancer and a dozen or so heart procedures. He'd recently had a second pacemaker put in.
On Friday, Emmett Hall Sellars died from complications of several illnesses at Piedmont Hospital. He was 81. The funeral will be held at 1 p.m. on Tuesday at Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church in Marietta. H.M. Patterson & Son, Arlington Chapel, is in charge of arrangements.
When he lived in Tifton, Mr. Sellars met a judge who encouraged him to study law. The high school football player and cross country athlete arrived in Atlanta in the late 1940s with little more than the clothes on his back.
While a law student working at Goodyear, he met Louise Brantley, a company secretary. He asked her out to celebrate his birthday and they eventually married.
Mr. Sellars spent parts of his Goodyear career in El Paso, Dallas and Atlanta, but lived for 11 years in Akron, Ohio, when he oversaw international retail sales. He retired in 1986 because of poor health and returned to Atlanta.
He founded E. H. Sellars, Inc., and opened a Goodyear store on Johnson Ferry Road. He and his son, Timothy, eventually bought that business and opened two other Goodyear locations, also on Johnson Ferry and on Sandy Plains Road. All three exist today.
Timothy Sellars of Marietta remains proud of his father, a country boy who grew up dirt poor, became a high-ranking company executive and whose favorite phrase was "handle it."
"He was a self-made man and I followed in his footsteps," he said. "He taught me discipline, a strong work ethic and that I could walk among kings and still be a down to earth person. He was so real."
Additional survivors include his wife of 55 years, Louise B. Sellars and another son, Michael Sellars, both of Marietta; a daughter, Cathy Larsen of West Palm Beach, Fla.; a sister, Erline Wolfe of Columbus, Ohio; a brother, Pete Sellers of Jacksonville, Fla., and three grandchildren.
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