 
David Foster edited Gray’s Sporting Journal, a literature-based hunting and fishing magazine, for the first fifteen years he lived in Augusta. He still writes columns for Gray’s and since 2005 has kept an impressive on-line blog detailing his humorous and heart-wrenching insights into life and mortality. The blog, called “David Foster’s Kicking Kidney Cancer’s Arse,” gets three hundred to a thousand hits a day. The Combat Gardener | Marie “Frenchie” Bush The former president of the Garden Club of America wears a combat helmet. She considers it a mission to enrich the appearance of her hometown and deploy helpful information to the army of gardeners maintaining Augusta as the Garden City — home to more than a dozen garden clubs. “I love plants; I love people; and I love to bring the two together.” The Impresario | Cuthbert “Coco” Rubio CoCo Rubio is one of those fellows who are too cool for words, but more humble than cool. He’s lived mostly in Augusta and a short time in Honduras. In 1995, together with two friends, he opened the Soul Bar, on Broad Street, in what was the Safety Loan Pawn Shop, at a time when few were willing to venture into downtown. Historic Augusta helped out, making the space available with an option to buy. Rubio has worked hard to realize his vision of a hip live music venue on the chitlins circuit. The Preservationist | Bryan Haltermann Bryan Haltermann’s great-grandfather Thomas Cumming was the first mayor of Augusta and started the first bank there. His grandfather Henry was the founder of the Augusta Canal, which rescued the town from economic depression in the 1840s and brought an industrial boom in the 1880s. Over the past twenty-five years, Haltermann has bought and renovated thirty-six storefronts and seventy-six loft apartments, spurring the Broad Street renaissance. It is commonly accepted that without his vision, downtown would be a ghost village. “I’d like to see more investors come into downtown. It’s a big party — we just need more people.” The Artist | Edward Rice Edward Rice and his twin brother moved to North Augusta to live with their maternal grandmother in what had once been a city jail. As a teenager, Rice began to support himself by selling drawings of Sacred Heart Church to congregants as they exited Sunday services. Today his work hangs in the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. And while people seek to collect his precise architectural renderings, Rice himself collects edge weaponry. “Getting back to friends and family in Augusta sets the tone for my work. When all is said and done, what remains are the stories,” says Rice. The Indie Filmmaker | Matthew Buzzell Matthew Buzzell is best known for his music-centered documentaries — If You Only Knew, Tell Me Do You Miss Me, and Putting the River in Reverse. His documentary Compañeras — the story of America’s first all-woman mariachi band — codirected with Elizabeth Massie, will be shown April 1 on PBS. Based in Los Angeles, Buzzell returns to Augusta three or four times a year. “I come home to spend time with my mom and to go to the Masters.” Buzzell laments how Augusta has fallen victim to urban sprawl but, he says, “downtown has a great vibe and great spirit.” |
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