Booker T Orsley - Running from Cowpatties

Booker T Orsley is a familiar smiling face at races in the Athens and northeast Georgia area.  Booker was born and rasied eight miles from Hartwell, GA where his father farmed fifty acres.  His father supported the large family (step brother Melvin, brothers Alonzo, Don, John, and sister Marjorie) with crops of cotton and soybeans.  Booker attended school in Bowman and Hartwell, GA, where he graduated from Hart County High School in 1972. Booker studied classmate Lessie more than he did his other subjects and married her almost forty-one years ago.  Lessie ran track in school and can still chase Booker.  They built a home on his father’s land in 1974 where Booker now farms the same fifty acres that his father did so sucessfully.  Booker and his FamilyBooker, however, raises cattle and hay to feed the cattle.  Booker sells eighteen to twenty head a year at a stock yard near Martin, GA.  This has been a good year for cattle yielding Booker $2.35 a pound on the hoof for his prime cattle.  Booker recalls selling some less than prime cattle for as low as .26 cents a pound in leaner years.  He cultivated and bailed three hundred roll bales of hay to feed his cattle this last year.

Antoine, Booker and StephenNot content to simply breed cattle, Booker and Lessie raised two sons on the family land.  Stephen (age 40) works for Home Depot in the Atlanta area.  Stephen has one daughter Olivia, age nine.  Antoine (age 36) is a detention officer and personal trainer.  I have met Antoine at races and enveied his well defined muscular body.  Antione lives in the Hatwell area and has two children, son Chanz, age thirteen, and daughter Chyna, age four.  Booker recalls that Stephen was a good hundred yard dash runner in his prime.  Booker was proud of Antoine graduating from Ashford Univrsity in 2014 with a bachelors of arts degree in Sports and Recreation management.  Antoine can be found with his father at Athens area races and is very competative in his age group.

Booker enjoys vacations in Florida, weightlifting, running, and selling his cattle for a good price.  Booker has been running competatively since age twenty-two.  He does not run during the week like Bob Slowpants, but will put in a cool down Sunday morning run of seven to eight miles.  Amazing Booker’s best 5K PR was 19:45 in the 1988 Grante Bowl 5K in hilly and chilly Elberton, GA.  His PR for a 10K was 44:00 at a Hartwell Dam race in the 1980s. Favorite races are the Hartwell Dam Run 5K, Covington area races, and suprisingly the Brasstown Bald 5K. Booker has shunned half and full marathons.   Booker participated in thirty six races in 2014, which is more than his average twenty races that he has particiapted in in 2013 and other years.  Booker is more than competative for his age and seeks races where he does not have to compete with Rogerl Keel or Bo Ryles in the mens 60-64 age group.  Booker, like a lot of us,  admits to an involuntary hobby of collecting race shirts and has no idea how many shirts that he has on hand.  His preference is cotton shirts as opposed to tech shirts.  Booker admits that his adrenline gets going by lining up toward the front of the starting line after his pre race warm up.  Bob Slowpants warm up is pining his race number on his shirt.  When he can only acquire two pins as opposed to four, he doesn’t get a full warm up.     

 Bob checking out from the back of the pack. Watch for the profile on attorney Mary Beth Forwood and  on radio personality Dan Shoaf.