Lillian Champion was a reporter for news in and around Chipley, GA (now Pine Mountain, GA) since 1941. This book is a collection of some of her previously-published newspaper articles and stories about Pine Mountain (Chipley) GA citizens, events and changes made in this small West Georgia town. These articles give some insight to the town's history. Proceeds from the sale of this book go to the Chipley Historical Center in Pine Mountain.
About the Author: Lillian Dismukes Champion grew up in Pine Mountain, Georgia and graduated from Chipley High School. She attended Georgia State College for Women and married Hubert Champion, a Harris County native, whom she met while playing the piano at Bethany Baptist Church during a singing school one summer. They were married for a little more than 66 years before his death in 2007. They raised their two children on their farm just west of Pine Mountain. Her first published story was in THE CHIPLEY REVIEW and was a report on a trip to Florida on Sim King's school bus with local students in 1941. Miss Janie O'Neal, one of the teachers, sat in a rocking chair in the middle of the bus on the trip. That story was written on a reconditioned Royal typewriter ordered from Sears by her father at the cost of ninety dollars. She used it for years afterward. While keeping account books for her father's plumbing and electric company in Pine Mountain, she became news editor of THE PINE MOUNTAIN REVIEW. During the latter part of the 1950s and most of the 1960s she wrote news stories and features for THE COLUMBUS LEDGER and ENQUIRER newspapers (two separate newspapers then) and for THE LEDGER-ENQUIRER SUNDAY MAGAZINE, THE HARRIS COUNTY JOURNAL, THE LaGRANGE DAILY NEWS, LaGrange, GA, THE MANCHESTER MERCURY, Manchester, GA and the Atlanta newspapers. She wrote numerous articles for the Columbus newspapers' 1961 Civil War Centennial Special Edition, which won second place in the nation for special editions that year. In 1978, she compiled a HISTORY OF BETHANY BAPTIST CHURCH from the old records of the church dating back to 1833. Following intensive research, Mrs. Champion published GIANT TRACKING, a book about the early days of Chipley (now Pine Mountain) and the railroad man, William Dudley Chipley, for whom the town was named in 1882. In 2008, she obtained, from the Historic Chattahoochee Commission, a Historical Marker for Bethany Baptist Church, believed to be the oldest organized church in the area. Mrs. Champion received an award from the Historic Chattahoochee Commission in 2007 for efforts to preserve and disseminate the history of Pine Mountain and Harris County, and the 2008 Local History Advocacy award from the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board of the Georgia State Archives. In 1986, she received the second place Letters Award from the Georgia Branch of the National League of American Pen Women for GIANT TRACKING in the nonfiction category.