Former sports journalist, literacy champion dies

The Latest Local News from the Rome News

A pillar of the Northwest Georgia community died, Wednesday morning in Calhoun.

Wayne Minshew, 78, a member of the Rome-Floyd County Sports Hall of Fame, loved baseball.

“We hit it off early because he was a huge baseball fan and so am I,” said Coleen Brooks, Minshew’s friend of 12 years. “We talked baseball just about every day.”

Minshew was born in Cherokee County, Alabama, and graduated from Model High School, where he played base-ball.

On the varsity team in the 11th grade, he played for a mill team in Shannon and moved on to college baseball.

Minshew turned in two amazing years at the University of Georgia in 1957 and ‘58.

In 1957, Minshew led the team with five wins and struck out 40 batters, but his eye-pooping ERA of 1.02 still stands today as the lowest season ERA of any UGA pitcher.

Minshew also won five games for the Bulldogs in 1958 and was the team captain. He struck out 49 batters that season.

In his two seasons, Minshew posted a 10-4 record with a 2.50 ERA and is listed as a Georgia Great in the UGA Baseball Media Guide.

Per Baseballreference.com, Minshew played one season in the minor leagues. He played in 1958 with the Wytheville and Hobbs both affiliates of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Minshew played shortstop and hit .455 in four games with Wytheville before moving to Hobbs where he played in 26 games.

When he did not make it in the major leagues, he opted for a career covering the sport. Minshew found that his background in baseball was helpful as he moved into the world of journalism.

Although he became a sportswriter, Minshew didn’t totally leave baseball. In 1961, he played one game for Jacksonville in the South Atlantic League. In that game, he threw five innings of no-hit ball. After leaving the field, Minshew wrote the game story, which received national attention at the time.

“It (the major league stint) made for great summer employment, but the best part of it was eight years later, it gave me credibility when I started covering major league base-ball,” Minshew said in 2012. “There is something about sports; if you played, then you’re OK. If you didn’t play, they look at you kind of funny sometimes.”

Following stints at smaller newspapers, Minshew in 1965 signed on with the Atlanta Constitution and became the first Atlanta Braves beat writer. The team had just moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta.

Minshew covered the Braves for 13 years before he moved into media relations for the team and eventually became its public relations director.

“I loved listening to his stories about Hank Aaron and others,” said Brooks, who became friends with Minshew when he became the second executive director of the Calhoun-Gordon County Council for a Literate Community. “He was in his element when he talked baseball. Just recently while I was visiting with him, we talked about the Braves and what kind of season the team would have. He wasn’t too hopeful.”

Minshew used his public relations know-how to help a number of organizations.

He served on the Atlanta Paralympics Organizing Committee, publishing and editing the first media guide for the event in Atlanta, and volunteered for the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, writing a research paper used by architects to design and construct the museum in Macon.

In 2011, he retired from the literacy council after nine years of service. During that time, he engineered a special project: the GED Wall of Honor at Georgia Northwestern Technical College, where an adult education student is honored each year.

“The thing I’m proudest of (as a part of the literacy council) is the GED Wall of Honor, because all those recipients had great stories to tell,” Minshew said in 2012. “I mean they came out of wherever to succeed, to accomplish a good thing.”

Minshew was enshrined in the Rome-Floyd Sports Hall of Fame in 2011 as a Professional Athlete.

In addition to volunteer boards, Minshew served on the Gordon County Chamber of Commerce’s Marketing & Business Development Committee and was involved in the early planning of the Chamber’s “Keep It In The County” program, according to spokeswoman Joni Harbin, who also serves on the literacy council.

“Gordon County lost a fine man, literacy lost a fine advocate and I am only one of a legion who lost a fine friend,” Harbin said.

Minshew leaves behind a son, daughter and grandchildren.

A memorial service is set for Saturday, May 2, at 2 p.m., at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, 224 Trammell St. in Calhoun, with Rev. Louis Tonsmeire officiating and eulogy by Lee Walburn.

Source: Rome News

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