‘Peyton was all about Macon’: How a man changed our city years after he was gone

Tom Johnson was 14 and attending Macon’s Lanier High School when Peyton Anderson, owner of The Telegraph, hired him as freelance sports writer.

Johnson, now 77, would become a White House fellow under President Lyndon Johnson and enjoyed a career in newspaper and broadcasting after earning his journalism degree from the University of Georgia.

Johnson says Anderson provided financial support early on and mentored him through the years.

“Peyton Anderson was my earliest and most important champion,” Johnson said. “In many ways, you could describe me as the first Peyton Anderson Scholar.”

Years later when Anderson passed away in 1988, the Peyton Anderson Foundation was founded using funds from his estate. Johnson would become one of the first trustees on the Foundation’s board.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Peyton Anderson Foundation, an organization that has given $103 million to people and groups throughout the Macon area over the three decades.

“Peyton was all about Macon,” said Karen Lambert, president of the foundation. “He had made his life here, his business and his fortune here.”

The Foundation, which has two grant cycles per year, allocates funds to five different categories. The grants budget, which changes each year, was $4.7 million in 2018.

The grants are given to people and projects in the areas of community development, education, health, human services and arts and culture.

Community development

In the mid 1990s, Juanita Jordan, then president of the Foundation and Lambert’s mother, was at their headquarters in the Fickling Building on the corner of Mulberry and Second streets, Lambert said. Jordan looked out and saw a need to reinvest in the downtown area.

“There was one restaurant downtown, The Rookery. That was it,” Lambert recalled. “It is still a great restaurant. But it was the only one, everything had moved out to the mall. She gathered a group of people. They visited some different communities and saw what was going on and how different communities were working to bring energy and a life to their downtown.” 

Those visits and discussions led to the creation of NewTown Macon in 1996, which has a goal of restoring and revitalizing downtown Macon.

“Peyton Anderson (Foundation) founded NewTown and engaged the region’s most important business and community leaders to guide downtown revitalization,” said Josh Rogers, president of NewTown Macon. “That trend has sustained for 20 years because of the (Foundation’s) continued commitment.”

Since NewTown Macon’s inception there have been more than 60 new businesses added to the downtown area along with new housing options and many restoration and construction projects, according to the group’s website.

The Foundation has remained dedicated to helping NewTown and other community partners turn the downtown area into a truly vibrant epicenter not just for Macon, but for the entire region, Lambert said.

“To have that energy going on is very important to Macon-Bibb. It is important for our long range health,” she said. “We have so many assets in Macon with our musical heritage, with our tremendous architecture, our historical buildings and all of the things that are going on — we need to continue to feed that.”

The Foundation has contributed more than $25 million to community development since it began, according to the Foundation’s website. The largest percentage of total donations, by category, given by the Foundation is community development.

Other projects and organizations that have received funds under community development include the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, Macon-Bibb County and the United Way of Central Georgia.

Education

In 2017, the Foundation launched a new project called Teach to Inspire. The goal was to give teachers the chance to offer new and innovative ways to get children excited about learning.

The $500,000 project was to fund micro-grants for some of these ideas that the local educators developed. Those projects include an outdoor classroom at Rutland High School and a virtual reality system at Porter Elementary School.

The Foundation also has helped children get ready to learn through Read United.

Such programs offer a chance for the Foundation to work in partnership with the Bibb County School District and Superintendent Curtis Jones to help improve the graduation rate, Lambert said.

“We have this amazing superintendent doing incredible work in our schools and we want to support him,” she said. “Looking at education, if we can help somehow get children ready to learn when they are kindergarten, reading on a third-grade level when they are in the third grade, hopefully the graduation rates (will improve).”

Education is the second largest category in terms of total donations from the Foundation with $24 million, including $2 million of that dedicated to the Peyton Anderson Scholarships which began in 2009.

The scholarships require students be from Macon-Bibb County and attend college in Georgia.

“Deserving students who really wouldn’t be able to go to college or would have a tough time, I think we have made that easier,” Lambert said. “We really pull them in as family and mentor them.”

Human services

Macon AIM is one recent human services project that the Foundation has supported. It is a collaboration between agencies including the Department of Family and Children Services, several non-profit groups and the health departments, says Lambert.

“Several years ago, we funded a study to look at all the agencies that serve human needs. There were over 200 in Macon-Bibb County,” she said. “We tried to look at who was making the biggest impact.”

The Foundation pulled together a coalition that centers around helping families from birth until the age of five. It allows for it to be a one-stop shop for families in need, Lambert said.

“We are serving over 100 families now. It is something that we hope can be expanded and replicated,” she said.

Human services is the third largest category for the Foundation’s donations with $21 million. These funds have helped organizations including the Daybreak Center, Middle Georgia Community Food Bank and Kids Yule Love.

Arts and culture

The Foundation has also shown a dedication to arts and culture in the Macon area. One of the key projects was helping fund the construction of the Tubman Museum, which opened in 2015, with a $2.5 million donation.

In total, the Foundation has given over $20 million to arts and culture in three decades, including the restoration of the Hay House, the Capricorn Records studio and organizations such as Theatre Macon.

Health

If you walk the halls of the Macon’s Navicent Health Facilities, the name Peyton Anderson appears in more than one location.

The latest is on the neonatal intensive care unit in the new Beverly Knight Olson Children’s Hospital at Navicent. The Foundation contributed $2 million to the unit.

There’s also the Peyton Anderson Cancer Center, which was given $2 million in 2013.

“The Navicent Health and their huge medical campus is so important, not only for the people, the patients and their family but it is an economic driver for the city,” Lambert said. “It is huge. So any time we can help make that better, then I think we have to invest wisely.”

Other causes including Jay’s HOPE Foundation and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Georgia have received part of the $11 million that the Foundation has contributed to health projects in the city.

The Foundation has been able to make impact across all facets in the city of Macon and a lot of that stems from the board of trustees over the years staying focused on Peyton Anderson’s initial charge to them, Lambert said.

“When he was asked ‘Peyton what do you want us to focus on? What do you want us to do?’ he said ‘You’ll know. Just fund good-doers not do-gooders,’” she said.

“I think the trustees all along have sought to find those people, those organizations who are really doing good work and making a real difference. I believe the Foundation has been really successful at that and I believe he would be really proud.”

Johnson says that the city of Macon and his own life would be very different without Peyton Anderson and the Foundation.

“He was a wonderful, wonderful fun loving guy,” he said. “Every step of the way I have recognized Peyton.”

Johnson says that the Foundation’s board is one of the best that he has served on because it has kept in line with Anderson’s wish. He remembers with fondness how Anderson called him “Tommy.”

‘Tommy, I made my money in Macon and I want my money to be used here in Macon to help make it a better city,’” Johnson said. “There is not a finer Foundation, a better-led Foundation and one that cares about its community.”