by Rebecca Hightower
The University of West Georgia Foundation is pleased to announce a $50,000 gift to the University of West Georgia from William “Bill” Grady Hamrick III, judge on the Superior Court of Georgia in the Coweta Circuit.
Left to right: Dr. Bill Estes, Susan Hamrick, Bill Hamrick, and Blynne Olivieri
The $50,000 gift establishes the William Grady Hamrick III Campaign Legacy Endowment using excess funds from his Senate campaigns and will be utilized to support UWG’s Ingram Library’s Special Collections, particularly the holdings related to Georgia’s political heritage. Judge Hamrick’s Senate papers are currently housed in the Annie Bell Weaver Special Collections. A portion of the gift will also be used to provide annual funding to support activities, projects, and programs such as conservation and digitization to increase public discovery and use of the political holdings housed in the library’s Special Collections.
“I am pleased to be able to contribute to the continued success of the university,” said Judge Hamrick at the endowment signing earlier this year. “It’s important to continue to record and share our political heritage with students and the community alike, and the Special Collections serves as an invaluable tool for both research and preservation.”
A native of Carrollton, Judge Hamrick graduated from Carrollton High School in 1983 and earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Auburn University, where he served as the president of Sigma Nu Fraternity. In 1992, he received a law degree from Georgia State University College of Law.
Before joining the bench, Judge Hamrick served as a Georgia State Senator elected to the 30th district in 2000 in a special election. Senator Hamrick represented the citizens of Carroll, Douglas, and Paulding counties and was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary, chairman of Banking and Financial Institutions Committee, chairman of the Criminal Justice Subcommittee on Appropriations, and served as vice chairman of the Senate Rules Committee. He also served on the Ethics and Public Safety Committees. In the Senate, Hamrick chaired the Senate Study Committee to rewrite the Juvenile Justice Code and co-chaired the HOPE Scholarship Joint Study Commission to review the HOPE Scholarship, keeping it viable for future generations.
“Judge Hamrick’s gift supporting the Library Excellence Fund is planned to found an electronics records program in Special Collections,” explained Blynne Olivieri, head of Special Collections in UWG’s Ingram Library. “We will be able to manage, preserve, and provide public access to electronic content, creating an index for online access of department records.”
The funds will be divided to benefit both Library Excellence Fund and the political collection, with varying projects over the years.
“The overarching focus using gift funds, like the generous funds provided by Judge Hamrick, is to provide students online access to materials, meeting students’ needs where they are with the online access they need,” said Blynne. “Judge Hamrick was so visionary and excited to join the library in this endeavor.”
Currently, Judge Hamrick resides in Carrollton with his wife, Susan.
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