Perry attorney, author and columnist Larry Walker Jr., the Democratic Party Majority Leader in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1986 to 2004, died Tuesday at the age of 84. He is the father of Georgia Senate President Pro Tem Larry Walker III.
Walker graduated from the University of Georgia Law School in 1965 and began a career as an attorney and soon became a municipal court judge in Perry at age 23. In 1972 he won election to the state House of Representatives, taking the seat formerly held by soon-to-become U.S. Senator Sam Nunn. Walker later became the House floor leader for then-Gov. Joe Frank Harris.
Walker rose to House Majority Leader during an era when Democrats controlled the General Assembly. After Republicans won the governorship in 2022 and more of them were elected to the legislature, he retired in 2004. “I think it’s time to quit,” Walker told journalists at the time. “I’ve been in (the House) 32 years, and I want to go out when I’m on top. I’ve seen people who stayed too long, and I don’t want to be one of those.”
Walker later represented Georgia’s 8th Congressional District on the Georgia Department of Transportation and was appointed by then-Gov. Sonny Perdue to the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. He was the first columnist when James magazine was founded 21 years ago and he continued writing for it until 2022. He also wrote a weekly column for many years in the Houston (Ga.) Home Journal.
In 2010 he authored “Life on the Gnat Line; From Cotton Fields and Boardrooms as the Old South becomes the New…” At the time, Nunn wrote for the book’s back cover: “Larry Walker has been an outstanding public servant in Georgia for decades. And remains a unique leader at the state and local level. He is also an excellent writer with the rare ability to convert the features of Southern small town culture into solid building blocks for future cooperation and progress.”
Matt Towery, chairman of James and InsiderAdvantage and also a former state lawmaker, says, “Larry Walker was more than just a former legislator and lawyer, he was a Renaissance man. His interests and talents were immensely diverse. He was a magnificent writer and he put those skills to work for James Magazine for years as one of our columnists. I was shocked to hear of his passing and will truly miss him. Beyond everything else he was a dear friend.”
