ATLANTA -- Former Georgia governor and U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, has died after battling Parkinson's disease. He was 86.
WSB-TV has confirmed the information from Miller's family.
Miller served as Mayor of Young Harris from 1959-1960. He served as a Georgia State Senator from 1961-1964. He served as Lieutenant Governor of Georgia for 16 years from 1975-1991. He is currently the longest serving Lieutenant Governor in Georgia history.
[Family, friends gather to celebrate ongoing legacy of Zell Miller]
Miller served as the 79th Governor of Georgia from 1991-1999. As Governor, he created the HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally) Scholarship and Georgia’s Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten Program. He went on to serve in the U.S. Senate from 2000-2005.
Today, more than 1.8 million students have gone to college in Georgia on HOPE Scholarships and more than 1.6 million four-year olds have begun their education through Georgia’s Pre-K Program. These were his proudest achievements in his 46-year career in public service.
Miller was a college professor, a U.S. Marine and for 40 years one of the most influential politicians in Georgia history.
Miller, the lifelong Democrat, helped resuscitate Bill Clinton’s failing 1992 presidential campaign and ended up becoming one of the Republican party’s most vocal supporters, that was both his birthplace and the consummate backdrop for his colorful, controversial persona.
Like the Appalachian Mountains that dominated his North Georgia vistas, Miller rose improbably high and presented numerous faces to the world: The Polonius-quoting college professor who also wrote a country-western song with the down-home title “You Can’t Ration Nothing (That I Ain’t Done Without).” The onetime Expert Marksman Marine who later armed every Georgia newborn with a classical music CD. The unsuccessful 1980 Senate candidate dubbed “Zig Zag Zell” who roared back to become the state’s most popular governor — only to see much of what he’d accomplished drowned out by the din of his late-life political drama.
“We’ll probably not see his likes again,” said Merle Black, the Asa G. Candler professor of politics and government at Emory University and co-author of the seminal volume, “Politics and Society in the South.” Black called Miller’s eight years as governor the “high point” of his career, but added, “the most interesting part of his career was at the end.”
If that’s what he’s most remembered for, Miller reflected in what he (cribbing from Lord Byron) called the “yellow leaf days” of his life, so be it. In the end, nothing mattered so much to him as the beginning.
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