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Mourners gather to remember former House Speaker

Hundreds gathered in the hometown of Georgia House Speaker David Ralston Sunday to remember not only a powerful politician but one whose care for others crossed the political divide.

Current Gov. Brian Kemp and former governors Sonny Perdue and Nathan Deal were in the crowd at the Fannin County High School Performing Arts Center in Blue Ridge. Ralston was buried Sunday after the funeral in a private ceremony in nearby Ellijay, where he grew up the son of the Gilmer County court clerk.

Ralston moved to Blue Ridge after graduating from law school at the University of Georgia. He began his political career in 1992. He died November 16th at age 68.

Jeff has delivered morning news at WUGA Radio for more than a decade. He was among a team at CNN that won a George Foster Peabody Award in 1991 for an educational product based on the fall of the Soviet Union. He also won an Edward R. Murrow Award from Radio Television Digital News Association in 2007 for producing a series for WSB Radio on financial scams. Jeff is a graduate of the Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University (MBA) and holds a BS in Business Administration from Campbell University, both in North Carolina.