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Columns::September 23, 2002
UGA again named one of America’s top public universities
New athlete academic center named for Rankin Smith Sr.
Historian to present Charter Lecture about 1904 ‘childnapping’ incident
Rolling out the welcome mat
Skin deep
Avian Medicine Professor Emeritus George ‘Buck’ Rowland dies at 64
Prof’s research is full of personality
Update: Private Giving
Kudos
The idea of change
One year later
Good to the last drop
Campus News
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| The atrium in the historic administration building will be named this month in honor of the late Gordon Jones of Atlanta, a UGA graduate and long-time business and civic leader in the state. |
Administration building atrium named for business, civic leader
By Larry B. Dendy
ldendy@uga.edu
The atrium in the historic administration building will be named this month in honor of the late Gordon Jones of Atlanta, a UGA graduate and long-time business and civic leader in the state.
Portraits of several past UGA presidents hang in the atrium, which will be named the Gordon Jones Gallery.
The gallery will be a memorial to Jones by his family, which recently donated $500,000 to UGA. A private naming ceremony for the family will be held Sept. 27. The gift is unrestricted and will be placed in an account used to meet the university’s most pressing academic needs.
“The University of Georgia was very special to Gordon Jones and his family, and Gordon was an extraordinary alumnus and friend of the university,” says President Michael F. Adams. “We are deeply grateful to his family for their continuing support of the university, and we are pleased to honor Gordon for his contributions and many years of service to his alma mater.”
The recipient of a business degree from UGA in 1941, Jones was for 25 years president and CEO of BankSouth and its predecessors, Fulton National Bank of Atlanta and Fulton National Corp.
Jones, who died in 1996, was a former member and vice chairman of the UGA Foundation and served on the Alumni Society Board of Managers. He received the Alumni Society’s Alumni Merit Award in 1981 and received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Terry College of Business in 1964.
The Jones Gallery is one of the most charming spaces in the administration building, which was built in 1907. The building’s front doors open into the room, a bright, airy space with hardwood floors, intricate scrolled cornice work, globe lamps and two large skylights.
The 15th-oldest among UGA’s more than 340 buildings, the administration building was a library until 1955, when its conversion for use as an art museum destroyed or concealed much of the original ornate, early 20th-
century architecture, including the atrium. Most of those features were carefully restored when the building was completely renovated about four years ago.
The building houses offices of UGA’s president and three senior vice presidents.
Jones’s father, Harrison Jones, was chairman of the Coca-Cola Co., and his family founded Fulton National Bank of Atlanta. Gordon Jones joined the bank in 1947 after serving in the Navy during World War II and became president and CEO in 1958.
In 1969, he became president of Fulton National Corp., the holding company that owned the bank. When Fulton National changed its name to BankSouth in 1981, he continued as CEO and president until his retirement. He served on the executive councils of the American and Georgia Bankers Associations and was a member of the Reserve City Bankers. |
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