Curtis is standing in front of his office window on the second floor of City Hall. Ten years ago, when he took office as mayor of Duvall, Georgia the second floor was empty and dusty and full of spider webs. The building was old and leaky, and the city council decided to save some money by closing up the stairway. They literally built a plywood wall over the opening to the stairs.

Times were hard for small town municipal governments. Unpopular decisions had to be made.

Curtis had seen it in a hundred other little towns all over the state. Downtown economies falling apart. Local folks making the drive to shop someplace else. A few shops in town holding on. Second floor windows vacant and abandoned.

This is why he ran for mayor. He grew up here. His dad worked at the papermill on the edge of town. His grandfather farmed near here, out on the other side of the river. He had roots here and he couldn’t just sit by and watch Duvall fall apart.

So, in his thirties, Curtis put his name on the ballot.

His wife, Cindy, was not so taken with the idea. “You sure you want to do this?”

“I have to do this.”

Ever since he made up his mind, the idea of serving his hometown as mayor had become to him more like a calling than a political move. If you knew Duvall at all, you’d laugh at the idea. You’d know that this was not the place to start a political career. No one from Duvall had ever even been a county commissioner, or a state representative, or governor. Not ever.

If a fella wanted to be mayor of Duvall, it had to be for reasons other than aspiring to the mansion up on West Paces Ferry Road in Atlanta.

Most all of the mayors before Curtis had been retired men who had a little extra time on their hands. Being the honorable mayor in this town was not a full-time job and the pay was so small it didn’t warrant claiming it when you filed your tax return, which is what made the job appealing for the older guys.

His predecessors handled municipal matters conservatively, to say the least. The budget hadn’t changed in more than a decade. No new businesses had come to town in years, but a few had closed the doors. It had gotten to the point where the town council hadn’t had a new idea since they built the water tower in 1955. As long as they kept the lights on and didn’t go over budget, they were satisfied that life in Duvall would carry on.

Curtis didn’t see it that way.

As a result of his dream, Curtis has managed to do some real good for Duvall. His first year in office he convinced Piggly Wiggly to come into town and renovate old man McDaniel’s store. He was sure they could make a go of it, and he was determined to give Duvall a way to buy groceries without having to drive into the next county to get milk.

The town council thought he was crazy. “A big store like that is not going to give us a second look,” they said.

“How do you know if we don’t ask?”

And when Piggly Wiggly did move in, Curtis was glad to give credit to the vision of the town council for making it all happen. He didn’t need credit. He just wanted his town to live again.

Curtis always thought that Duvall was lucky. The state route ran right through town. They weren’t like a lot of other little towns that had been forgotten because of some four-lane bypass highway. People in a rush to someplace else. No sir. If a traveler came through here, he was gonna see Duvall for whatever that was worth.

The trouble is a neglected town looks rundown. One of the other matters on Curtis’s mind was to get folks to take pride in what Duvall looked like. He got Billy Moreland to clean up his junkyard a little bit. At least, the part out by the highway. He convinced the city council to tear down the old police shack by the railroad crossing. It was nostalgic to hold on to it, but it was also a liability because it was falling down all on its own.

He started a “Paint the Town” campaign a few years ago. Most of the brick store fronts stood shoulder to shoulder right down Main Street. As far as Curtis could tell, they all looked the same as they had when he was a kid. Old paint pealing off the brick facades. Coca Cola signs fading so much you could hardly read “Drink Refreshing Coca Cola” anymore. Abandoned second floors with junk piled up in front of the windows.

“How are we going to pay for all this?” The council wanted to know.

It never seemed to get any easier for Curtis. Always a battle to convince this town that it could be more.

“I’ll get the store owners to fund some part of it. They ought to have some ownership in this. We’ve got a little special tax money that we can pull from. Plus, there’s a federal grant available for historic downtown renovations that should be a slam-dunk for us. I’ve filed the application already and we should hear something pretty soon.”

It’s surprising what a coat of paint can do for a town. Move the junk, clean the glass, put up some new curtains and the second-floor windows don’t look so empty anymore.

Duvall began to have an appeal to outside businesses. A little swag. A new bookstore went into the old 5 & Dime. A restaurant owner took a chance on renovating the old hardware store with booths and tables for serving up BBQ.

Duvall was breathing again.

So, Curtis is standing at the large window in his office overlooking the railroad tracks that parallel the highway. Beyond the tracks, the water tower stands next to the old grain silo that’s been operated by the Cotton’s since his daddy was a boy.

Hubert Cotton had walked across the tracks and come to his office one day a few months back.

“Curtis,” he said. “There’s a lot of us who didn’t give you much of a chance as mayor. But you proved us wrong. I want to do something for you in return.”

Hubert sent some men over to the city office building. They ripped the plywood off the wall from over the opening to the stairs. They cleaned up and threw out and replaced what needed to be replaced. And when they were done, Curtis had a new office, a bathroom, and a conference room upstairs. They even stenciled new letters on the window. City Hall, it said.

It takes a special man to be a small-town mayor. Grit. Vision. Patience. Good Lord, lots of patience. It’s a thankless job most of the time.

But small towns live or die on the men who hold the office.

Thank God for the good ones.

In honor of Tommy Newton Smith (1946-2024), one time mayor of Hampton, Georgia.