Cherokee Tribune
By Donna Harris
1/28/09

Marguerite Cline can add another honor to her impressive resume.

The former Waleska mayor and Cherokee school superintendent was named the 2009 First Citizen Saturday night at the Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce’s 38th Annual Dinner at the Northside Hospital-Cherokee Conference Center in Canton. A crowd of more than 300 people gave her a standing ovation, as she received what is considered to be the county’s highest honor.

“I’m very humbled, especially here at the end of my career,” Ms. Cline, 70, said on Monday morning. “I’ve had a wonderful life, that’s for sure. I’m appreciative of everything everybody has done for me. It was very thrilling and humbling at the same time.”

The 34th First Citizen, who joins the list of such past winners as Judge Marion T. Pope Jr., Wade Buchanan and Dr. Grady Coker, said she had no idea she was this year’s recipient until William “Bill” Teasley “said something about (the winner) being an elementary instructional supervisor for the Cherokee County Board of Education” on the presentation video.

“Then I thought, ‘Hey, that’s me,’” the former educator said. “I’m not sure anything did (pop into my mind). While they continued the video, I finally realized, ‘You’ve got to say something.’”

Ms. Cline, who attends the dinner every year with her longtime friend, WLJA co-owner Byron Dobbs, said she immediately thought of a poem, “one of my favorite things,” that she keeps in her wallet and began “fumbling around in my bag” to find it.

In the poem, God gives someone the task of building a better world, but when the person asks how he can do that when the world is so vast and he is so small and useless, God says, “Just build a better you.”

“Some days I live by that, and some days I don’t,” Ms. Cline said. “But I try.”

Teasley, a retired educator and 2005 First Citizen, said he nominated his friend for the award because he thinks she’s “an extremely deserving person.”

“She’s just been involved in so many aspects of life in Cherokee County for so many years and has been a dedicated public servant for many years,” the Canton resident said, noting he met her in the late ’70s or early ’80s through his wife, Sylvia, who was a teacher. “I just think of her being a person who is deeply committed to her work and deeply loyal to all of her friends.”

Ms. Cline, a longtime columnist for the Cherokee Tribune, said she didn’t know two of her children, Cynthia Moore and John Cline, were there until they joined her on stage for the award presentation. Her oldest son, Dr. Joel Cline of Elba, Ala., was unable to attend.

“Two out of three is not bad,” she said.

A glance at her resume shows Ms. Cline is a jill-of-all-trades and master of all, being the first woman elected to male-dominated offices of superintendent of Cherokee County schools, mayor of Waleska, chairperson of the chamber and deacon at Heritage Baptist Fellowship.

After 26 years as an educator, the alumna of Reinhardt, North Georgia and West Georgia colleges served as superintendent from 1984 to 1992 and called “what we accomplished during the time when I was a school superintendent” as her greatest professional achievement.

“We were growing so fast, and the needs were so great,” she said. “We certainly didn’t meet them all, but we certainly made good progress.”

Two years after leaving the school system, she became Waleska’s first woman mayor, a position she held for 14 years until stepping down Dec. 31.

“I’ve been in politics 22 years, and I know I served because the people wanted me to and went back to the polls,” she said. “I’ve met so many, many people through politics, and now that continues as I write for the Tribune. I’m just a people person.”

Ms. Cline’s youngest son, John, praised his mother for both her service to her community and her dedication as a single mom.

“For over 50 years now, she has worked to improve the lives of those around her through her service as a classroom teacher, a school administrator, a mayor, an author and as a volunteer in religious and charitable organizations that are too numerous to name,” he said.

Cline said his mother was left to raise three children, ages 13, 7 and 4, alone when their father, Joe, died in 1978.

“I know that raising three children as a single parent is a very difficult task, but I never doubted that my needs would be met, and I enjoyed a very happy childhood in Waleska,” he said. “Throughout my life, my mother has been supportive of me and of the other members of my family.”

Cline, who has a 3-year-old daughter and a baby due in June, said one of his goals is to “equip my children with the values and tools that they will need to enjoy an even better life than I did.”

“Looking back on my life with my mother, I can see now that she was able to instill those same values and tools in me,” he said. “Thanks in large part to her efforts, I was given a chance to be successful in life.”

Ms. Cline said her greatest personal achievement has been her children, who have given her nine grandchildren and great-grandchildren and two on the way. Cynthia is a certified public accountant in Atlanta; Joel is a veterinarian in Alabama; and John is a Cherokee County assistant probate court judge.

“I’m just so proud they did so well, especially growing up in the situation as they did, with just one parent,” she said.

Canton City Councilwoman and Reinhardt Vice President JoEllen Wilson, who said Ms. Cline was “one of the first people I met” when she moved to Canton four decades ago, called her friend “a touchstone for many of us.”

“If Marguerite does something, you know it’s going to be done right,” she said. “She doesn’t do anything halfway.”

She also said Ms. Cline’s influence is evident all across the county.

“When you think of anything happening in Cherokee County, Marguerite has probably been involved in it, whether it’s education, the political forum, the business arena. Anywhere you look, you can see the hand of Marguerite Cline, and it’s always positive.”

And Ms. Cline deserves the award just because she’s a “really nice person,” she added.

Dobbs, who has known Ms. Cline for more than 25 years, said his longtime friend has “just been a super-giving person.”

“She has done a lot for the community,” he said. “She’s very deserving (for) all the things she’s brought to the community as mayor and school superintendent and all the civic organizations and her church.”

Dobbs, who met her when he was covering the school board for the radio station and she was superintendent, said he was asked for the video what time in her life most impressed him.

“I said, ‘Tonight (Saturday) because she has no idea she’s getting this award,’” he said. “Not the first inkling.”

Ms. Cline had already been mayor of Waleska for nine years when Debbie McIntyre became the city clerk and met her for the first time.

And even though she only worked with “the people’s mayor” for five years, Ms. McIntyre said she could “probably write a book on what that lady has taught me.”

“I’ve watched her work under pressure and how she maintains her composure,” she said. “It’s second-nature to her. And Marguerite Cline is the first person I’ve ever known who can be so nice to you, and when you walked away (you realize) she actually chewed you out.”

Ms. McIntyre said she’s seen Ms. Cline carry out her duties as mayor by following her motto “It’s what can we do for the people, not to the people.”

“So many times, your public elected officials do things that benefit them and do not stop to think what it does for the people,” she said. “She was never for anything that went against the people who paid the property taxes, and that should be the way you look at it.

“And her ethics, oh my gosh. She seldom made a decision because of personality. It was always based on the best interest of the city, the logic and principle of it, not who it was for.”

As a result, “never in my six years (with the city) did I hear anything negative said about her, not one thing,” Ms. McIntyre said.

“That’s major,” she said. “When you work as a public servant and don’t hear a complaint, wow.