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Dalton Roberts
--Man of the Millennium

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Roberts

Man of the Millennium

Calls beginning of new century exciting
and ‘now is very best time to be alive’

By Pete Chaney

If you live long enough, you meet a lot of interesting people. If you happened to have started in the newspaper business when you were 17 years old in 1950, you would have met a lot of very interesting people. Harry Moore (who claimed he broke the Wright Brothers flight story) and Tom Wicker. Richard Nixon and Sam Ervin. Jersey Joe Walcott and Yogi Berra. John Bubbles and Robert deNiro. Ray Price and Cristy Lane. And a lot of other folks. After a while you aren't easily impressed.

Dalton Roberts would impress anyone. Fifteen years ago as a newcomer to Chattanooga, I couldn't understand how anyone that blunt spoken could not only hold political office but be as popular as he was. It was because of that bluntness, that dedication to honesty that made him say what the thought and do what he believed best. That's why he was loved or hated, but hated with respect.

It would seem strange for anyone else to be son of a minister, a college graduate to make his living picking a guitar and singing in honky tonks. When he ran for office as the first Hamilton County Executive in the newly created office, political advisers told him to stay away from his honky tonk friends. He said if he had to turn his back on friends he had rather not be in politics. Those friends helped put him in office. His ability and actions earned him the right to stay there as long as he wanted.

Yet, he's more than a politician and public servant. His array of talents is amazing--song writer, author, talented writer and columnist, student of philosophies and religion from yoga to meditation, and he's a bird watcher. If someone said he was going back to school to learn to be a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon, those who know him wouldn't be surprised.

Once I told him I felt like a dinosaur, a 19th Century man deluged by changing cultures and inventions. He disagreed. He felt this was the most exciting time to be alive. If Chattanooga and Hamilton County have a 21st Century man, Dalton Roberts is certainly the Man of the Millennium.

This article appeared in the March 2000 edition of Reveille