(inspiring music) (inspiring music continues) - Hello, and welcome to "Georgia Legends."

I'm Jeff Hullinger inside the Atlanta History Center.

George Irvin Perdue III, better known to you and I as Sonny, has been a farmer, a football player, a veterinarian, and a businessman.

But most Georgians know him from the tireless public service that he has engaged in for the last 40-plus years.

Always looking for a new challenge, never tiring from the task at hand.

Sonny Perdue has had a full life, but seemingly always in search of his next role.

(majestic music) He's been a county commissioner, a state legislator, a two-term governor, the US Secretary of Agriculture, and the Chancellor of the University System of Georgia.

Sonny Perdue has made it his lifelong duty to help the citizens of Georgia, always ready to face the next challenge with an intense work ethic and a passion to serve.

(gentle music) George Irvin Perdue III was born on December 20th, 1946, to George and Ophie Perdue in Perry, Georgia, not far from the small farming community of Bonaire where the family farm was located.

His family would refer to the youngest Perdue as Sonny, a name that he would use for the rest of his life.

- My grandfather was named George.

My father was named Irvin, and there wasn't a lot left that you could do with a nickname with George Irvin Perdue.

So my father just said, "Looks like Sonny to me."

And I've had Sonny all my life, and that's who I am.

- [Jeff] His father was a row crop and a dairy farmer.

- He loved to grow watermelons and cantaloupes and sweet corn and beans and peas and those kind of things.

- [Jeff] His mother was a teacher.

- I tell people, my mother taught English for 42 years and I said, "I still get PTSD over dangling participles."

(both laughing) (birds singing) - [Jeff] For young Sonny, life on the farm was hard work, but also rewarding.

- The responsibility that I had there on my father and our family's farm was significant.

I had purposeful, meaningful work to do.

They were not chores; they were things to accomplish on a family farm.

- [Jeff] It would instill in him a work ethic that would drive him for the rest of his life.

- I think I loved to work growing up.

I learned how to work on a small farm there and really understood the accomplishments of hard work.

And so I thrive on that.

- [Jeff] Another of his farm duties would teach him a skill that would also come in handy one day.

- We would harvest watermelons and I would take a ton and a half truck from Bonaire, Georgia, to the new Atlanta Farmer's Market out here at Forest Park and sit on those concrete stanchions there with an old Army cot at that point in time selling watermelons.

I cut my teeth on trading with those, we call 'em pinhookers, who would come and try to pick off farmers there and negotiate with them.

So I think that was an interesting part of my upbringing.

- I mean, you couldn't imagine at the time that that would be a skill that would serve you well in politics the rest of your life.

- That's exactly right.

No, exactly right.

It's just learning human nature, learning negotiation, and learning how to come to a deal.

- [Jeff] Sports also played a big role in his development.

Warner Robins High School was created in 1953, and while they would someday be a high school football powerhouse, those early years were quite the opposite.

- Built a great reputation after I left in football.

It was not all that successful in football while I was there.

However, in my junior year, we did have a perfect season, 0 and 10.

(both laughing) - [Jeff] Perdue played both offense and defense in his first two years on the team, eventually becoming the starting quarterback during his senior year.

Those teams weren't very good, but Perdue found a way to distinguish himself.

- It did have the benefit of winning the passing crown for that in 1-AAA that year in 1965.

That in '64, actually in the football season, that stood for about, I think 17 or 18 years, and that was before the passing genre of high school football these days.

And I think it was only like, I don't know, 1,900 yards or something like that.

And people said, "Well, how'd you do that?"

I said, "Well, we had to, we couldn't run the ball."

(both laughing) - [Jeff] While football was a passion, there was something else Perdue wanted even more.

- I actually had offers from outta state, playing offers outta state.

But I wanted to go to veterinary school so badly and to get into veterinary school, you pretty much had to apply from the state you were in, in that way, that was the University of Georgia.

So that's the reason I decided to go to the University of Georgia and also walk on to try to accomplish both of those.

- [Jeff] Perdue enrolled at the University of Georgia in 1965 and was a walk-on to the UGA football team.

- I was not a D-1 athlete.

Let's just say that, right?

I teasingly tell people I was small, but I was slow.

(both laughing) And that's not a D... I didn't have the capacity to be a D-1 athlete at that time or any other time.

But I had the heart, and it was almost like the Doug Flutie kind of thing.

I had the mind and the brain and the analysis that way, but I didn't have the physical skills to compete at that level.

So it was hard to distinguish myself.

- [Jeff] Perdue only played his freshman year, choosing instead to focus on his undergrad and veterinary school studies.

It was during that time that he had another life-changing event.

- I had a high school friend, she said, "I've got this girl that you need to meet.

She's a freshman."

And she was telling Mary all the time, "I got this guy you need to meet," so, "you gotta meet her, you gotta meet him," kind of thing.

So we agreed to a blind date.

That was a terrible date.

I had a migraine headache that night.

I barely said five words, but that started a 53-year, or I guess with the dating perspective, 57 years, 53 years of marriage, but we dated for about four years prior to getting married.

- [Jeff] He graduated in 1971 with a degree in veterinary medicine, and the next year, Mary and he would get married.

- I'd already signed up for military obligation because Vietnam was roiling and I wanted to do my patriotic duty as that.

Well, so I signed up, and then in '71 when I graduated, Vietnam was calming down to a certain degree and I had an Air Force obligation, so I served in Columbus, Ohio, that way.

It was really a public health mission, food safety and those kind of things was the mission of a veterinarian.

- [Jeff] Perdue would serve in the Air Force until 1974, leaving the service as a captain.

- I met a graduate of the University of Georgia five years earlier that persuaded me to come to Raleigh, North Carolina, and it was an absolute great partnership.

The fact is, I'd been busy working on the farm.

I had never worked in a veterinary office until my junior and senior year in veterinary school.

So as I... The circumstances were ideal.

Great community, Raleigh, North Carolina, great neighborhood, church, family growing, neighbors, all those kind... Great partners and affluent veterinary practice at that point in time.

But I just became unfulfilled at that point in time.

I decided in 1976 that I'd come back home and my brother-in-law and I began an agribusiness company.

- [Jeff] Back home in Bonaire, Perdue was appointed to the Houston County Planning and Zoning Commission.

- When a senator who had served that region for in that district for 18 years decided late in the cycle not to offer for reelection, county leaders came and said, "Would you run for it?"

I had no aspiration to running for elected office.

I was happy with doing my civic rent on planning and zoning, had a growing family, a growing business, church, and civic responsibilities there.

So I really didn't.

- [Jeff] It took a planned vacation with Mary to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, to persuade Perdue.

- We went there and started walking those dirt streets, understanding the founding of this country came by people coming from their law practices, their medical practices, their farms, their educators, and coming together to do the public's business and then go back home.

That was essentially the legislative, the citizen legislature that we had at that point in time.

So we came back and agreed to run for office, and I was elected in 1990 to begin serving in 1991.

- [Jeff] For the next 11 years, he would serve in the state senate, the first eight as a Democrat.

He chaired the Senate Higher Education Committee and became a trusted deputy of Lieutenant Governor Pierre Howard.

He would steadily rise in the Senate leadership ranks, first as a majority leader, and then as Senate President Pro Tempore in 1997.

And like many conservative Democrats in Georgia at the time, he switched parties in 1998.

- When I was born in 1946 in Perry, Georgia, they stamped Democrat on your birth certificate.

I made a political decision, I call it truth in advertising, in 1998 to change parties and became a Republican at that point in time and believing in limited government and lesser government was better and more of a Republican platform.

- [Jeff] In 2001, he resigned from his senate seat to make a run for the governor's office.

- My family's why I'm running for governor.

As Mary and I look at those precious little twin granddaughters, I want Georgia to be as bright for them as the Georgia I remember.

- [Jeff] In the 2002 election, Sonny Perdue would go on to beat the Democrat incumbent Roy Barnes with 57% of the votes, becoming the 81st governor of Georgia and the first Republican since 1868 to hold the office.

- Welcome to the party, folks!

(audience cheering) Many people had no idea what to expect.

And my goal, just like my whole life had been, was to prove them wrong and to prove them that I was a value-oriented person trying to get good value, a good return on investment for taxpayer dollars.

You know that era, 2003 to 2011 when I governed, had twin recessions.

So I teasingly said, "It probably took a penny-pinching farmer to try to get the money outta there."

When your revenue is decreasing, sometimes at double digits in a year, and you have a balanced budget amendment and you cannot spend within that year more than you take in.

- [Jeff] During his first term, he advocated for cutting waste in state government, mainly through the sale of surplus vehicles and real estate to help offset the financial impact of the 2001 dot-com bubble recession.

He pushed for local control over education, which he claimed helped increase SAT scores and created more opportunities for charter and private schools, but also fired members of the Clayton County School Board over ethics violations.

And he created the Commission for a New Georgia.

- We put a lot of CEOs and C-suite people on a huge commission saying, "How can we literally... government's not a business, but how can we run government more like a business with return on investment and making sure we're doing the right things."

- [Jeff] In 2005, he pushed for the passing of the Georgia Land Conservation Act, which would go on to preserve over 200,000 acres in the state.

- Anyone can tell you they can count on Sonny Perdue, as word is his bond.

- [Jeff] In 2006, he won reelection over his Democrat opponent Mark Taylor, and in 2007, the state would be challenged again with another economic collapse during the Great Recession.

- The economic storm we now find ourselves in is unlike anything we've seen.

These are hard times for Georgians.

Many of our friends and neighbors have lost their jobs and others are working harder and longer for less.

- [Jeff] Also that year, another challenge, this time a severe drought that would threaten agriculture, water supplies, and lead to a series of wildfires throughout the state.

- The thing about a drought is you don't ever know when it's going to end.

And after we've done all those conservation things, I call for prayer and people around the state, and I guess I learned that when in agribusiness, we depended on our farmers for their livelihood, for their buying products and then selling us their products in the grain business.

And they depended on their crops.

And guess what?

Their crops depended on rain.

And if that wasn't successful, they weren't successful, we weren't gonna be successful.

So early on, I took no shame in calling for prayer for rain because I learned early on who makes it rain.

- [Jeff] As governor, Perdue opposed same-sex marriage and supported some of the toughest illegal immigration legislation in the state at that time.

- And I think there was much frustration on the state level in that we believed immigration was a federal issue, still do, and it was not being dealt with on the federal level.

So many states felt like there were immigrants coming in, illegal immigrants coming into the state.

Many people felt like they were taking benefits from healthcare and educational issues that were not being appropriately accounted or compensated for.

And so there was legislation, I thought, fairly reasonable legislation while I was governor there to make sure that we dealt with those issues.

- During his time in office, Perdue received criticism from some supporters for not putting the controversial 1956 state flag version with its confederate imagery on a 2005 referendum after saying that he would during his campaign.

Critics questioned the value of the Go Fish Education Center, he championed and built near his hometown of Bonaire.

Is there anything that surprised you about being a two-term governor?

Maybe as you went into that you didn't expect?

- People were not used to a Republican governor, it's been 135 years.

What was gonna be different?

How would this person govern in a way... And we wanted to make sure that we indicated to people that we really wanted the best for all Georgians.

I mean, I wanted the best for those people who voted for me, certainly, but I wanted the best for those people who didn't vote for me.

My goal was to leave Georgia in a way that they would want more of that kind of management governing perspective in all aspects.

- [Jeff] After leaving office, Sonny, along with his cousin David Perdue, formed Perdue Partners in 2011, a global trading company, which helped the US businesses trade with overseas partners.

In 2017, President Trump announced his nomination of Sonny Perdue as the 31st US Secretary of Agriculture.

He was easily confirmed in the US Senate.

- Well, good morning.

(audience applauding) Good morning.

I've been waiting to see y'all and it looks like y'all have been waiting to see me too, right?

- The federal government job.

What was that like?

Was it frustrating?

Was it as bureaucratic as one might surmise?

- Most people ask me, "What was he like?"

(laughs) - Got it, yeah.

- In serving under the first Trump administration, and honestly it was very interesting.

He and I got along very well.

I was there to serve a constituency that I thought was very important to him and to the United States.

That's the agricultural community, the food producing community.

I took it as part of our national security of being food security.

- [Jeff] During his tenure, Perdue said he strived to be a good steward of the country's fields, forest and farmers.

He created a mentoring program to help attract new farmers, reduced farming regulations, and endorsed a plan that would've monetized carbon capture and innovated farming.

- Farmers are great innovators, they're great entrepreneurs, they have great ingenuity.

And many of the OEM equipment we see from the majors today started in a farm shed somewhere.

- [Jeff] While there was public criticism of his skepticism on climate science, Perdue received high marks from farmers and was seen as an advocate in Washington.

When President Trump lost reelection in 2020, Perdue left Washington as one of the few people to keep his cabinet post for the full term.

In February of 2022, Sonny Perdue was chosen by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents as its 14th chancellor.

- Our goal is for every campus to be their own personality, their own culture, to allow them the freedom to be everything they can be.

And that's under the leadership of the president of the university or the college that way.

And that's our biggest job.

And the most important job we have is choosing the right leaders.

- [Jeff] His position as chancellor oversees 48,000 faculty members and more than 300,000 students with an annual budget of almost $10 billion.

- Congratulations.

- After 50 years of public service in multiple leadership roles, I had to ask: Which job do you like best that you've had so far?

- That's an unfair question.

(both laughing) - I try to ask unfair questions.

- I like the job I'm in best at the time, I think.

I've enjoyed all three, and they've all been different, as you certainly said.

But you know, it's hard to beat the governorship in any way.

Secretary of Agriculture in the United States is an important job, and we were fulfilled in that constituency of helping the growers of food and the producers across the country and growing help.

The atmosphere for farmers was very important.

And then again, I've talked about the life changing experience here as chancellor, so I really enjoyed all of 'em.

I think I would say probably my favorite is the one I'm currently in at that time.

- [Jeff] Now in his eighties, the father of four and grandparent of 14 has no plans to slow down.

- People say, "Well, when are you gonna quit?"

I don't know, you know, really what quitting is, I think is really what I guess I'm trying to say.

I believe in doing your best.

My parents drilled that in me, do your best in everything that I do.

So I'm not here to buy time.

- You're just getting started.

- I'm having a midlife crisis.

(both laughing) - If you could get in the time machine and go back to before 1990, would Sonny Perdue in 1987 be surprised to see how your life has played out?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

Again, I was growing a business and I really had come back home in 1976, having become a veterinarian, having served my country in the Air Force as an obligation there.

And then practicing veterinary medicine in Raleigh, North Carolina, becoming homesick, never getting over the red clay of middle Georgia, coming back home and beginning in agribusiness, growing a business there.

Absolutely.

I'd be totally shocked to see what's happened in those 50 years.

(gentle music) - In 2025, amid the country's political divisiveness and discord, Chancellor Perdue came out and vowed to continue to protect free speech on Georgia campuses, saying that students need the right to be able to discuss issues in a civil, respectful manner, persuaded only by another's thoughtful arguments.

They are mechanical and sculptural works of art carved from pieces of teak and mahogany, plank on frames, gleaming brass, powered by straight-eight engines, burbling as they float across the water.

They are glorious vintage wooden boats.

Many bridge a link between Georgia's history and the state's notable families who helped shape it, most as old as the lakes they float on.

I had the pleasure to learn more about them as I cruised with an armada of the classic runabouts at Lake Rabun in northeast Georgia.

(uplifting music) A few hours northeast of Atlanta sits one of the oldest reservoirs in the state.

Lake Rabun was created in 1915 when the Mathis Dam was completed on the Tallulah River by the Georgia Railway and Power Company, better known today as Georgia Power.

It would take another 10 years to complete a tunnel to the power generator and for the valley to fill with water.

It immediately became a popular destination.

The lake would become one of the toniest playgrounds in the state with some of its wealthiest and most influential families, building their summer cottages on the lake shoreline, complete with elaborate boathouses.

Really pretty boat.

- [John] With this one, I really try.

- [Jeff] How old would that boat be?

- I would say the forties, 1940s.

But it could be older.

There are a few that are older than this.

I think the oldest up here might be in the like 1930s.

- [Jeff] In those boathouses, another Lake Rabun delight, a collection of vintage wooden boats, one of the largest in Georgia.

Impossible to think of Lake Rabun without thinking of the wooden boats.

They are synonymous as much a part of Georgia as kudzu and Coca-Cola.

- Well, I'd say they have a big presence here and we're fortunate that we have as many in the area and they're probably 75 to a hundred on Lake Rabun.

And they're also a good many on Lake Burton.

And it's a popular pastime for people to try to maintain these older boats.

- John Lundin's family has owned a summer house here since 1954 after they purchased the lake's oldest homestead built by the Georgia Railway and Power Company President Preston Arkwright in 1919.

So your family comes with an opportunity in 1954 to have this home here, and with it comes this 1936 Chris-Craft.

What a deal.

- Yes, it was.

Fortunately, my grandfather and my father were able to get the Arkwright family to agree to sell the property to us.

And it was kind of a dream come true.

- [Jeff] That boat still belongs to the Lundin family, but its journey hasn't always been smooth sailing.

- This boat sat basically not being used for almost 25 years, basically hanging on in the dam actually at that point.

And 'cause my grandfather got tired of paying money to try to get it fixed.

After I got married, I convinced my mother to assist me with restoring it and getting the motor operational and so forth.

It had holes in it, it had fallen at one point, and we had to replace some of the decking on the front.

- [Jeff] Many of the boats original to the lake had to be brought in by train and then hauled by mules to the lake's edge.

And in the early years, access was so primitive that it was easier to sell the boat along with the house rather than to move it.

- Every 8 to 10 years, you have to go ideally and refinish it and so forth.

And you know, that gets pretty expensive process maintaining the motors and so forth.

A lot of people have gone back and put in new motors, which are not so complicated.

This is basically an original straight-eight Chrysler engine.

And so from that perspective, it actually operates quite well at this point.

- [Jeff] I am lucky enough to accompany John as he partakes in the annual 4th of July wooden boat parade.

- I don't know if you can count 'em all.

It's like maybe we have a little better of participation this year.

- [Jeff] Got a good crowd.

Dozens of classic wooden boats made between the 1920s and the 1960s.

Chris-Crafts, Gar Woods, and Centuries festooned in red, white, and blue, all giving those gathered on the shore a patriotic thrill.

(lively music) (participants cheering) (participants clapping) - So that, I mean, his is pristine.

So you see his motors in the back.

Gar Wood only did a few of some of those, I mean limited now.

I think they're only 44-'5 of those in existence now.

- Wow.

(lively music) (lively music continues) This is so fantastic though, with the great history and the community that you have up here and these boats.

Docked once again, it is hard not to get sentimental about these floating icons.

When you pilot this craft, does it make you reflective?

Do you find yourself thinking about your father and your grandfather?

- Sure.

- And are surprised by some of the thoughts and memories?

- Yeah, there've been quite a few emotions from this boat, but you know, I'm not just that, including my daughter's wedding.

Youngest daughter got married at the Lake Rabun Pavilion and brought her to the wedding in the boat and so forth, which was a lot of fun.

(lively music) (lively music continues) - There is a stewardship with this and there is a responsibility, a generational responsibility with this, which is unlike owning another kind of boat or really even an automobile for that matter.

- [John] From my perspective, it's antique.

It's, you know, 1936, it'll be 90 years old next year.

I took on the responsibility of maintaining it and repairing it.

I feel, you know, responsibility for it at this point.

And then I hope you know, my family, the next generation will continue on with it.

(lively music) - Wow.

As Ferris Bueller once said, "If you have the means, I highly recommend it."

That's our show.

I'm Jeff Hullinger for "Georgia Legends."

(inspiring music) (inspiring music continues)