Meg Poitevint ’01 is a fourth generation UGA alumna who serves on the development staff of the UGA Law School. She was asked to share her Bulldog legacy at a recent staff meeting and shared the following:
“Six years ago, I was the fourth generation of my family to graduate from this institution. I was a Phi Mu as the three generations before me. My great-grandfather, William Gordon Wingate, received his bachelor’s degree from the University in 1922, and his master’s in 1923. During the early 1900’s, ‘Pa,’ as we refer to him, and his brothers, Rozier and Lynnwood, were the first family in UGA’s history to have three members in attendance at the University at the same time. Lynnwood’s daughter, whom everyone calls, ‘Aunt Ruth,’ a ’49 graduate of the University, still enjoys telling this fact.
Pa’s brother, Uncle Lynnwood, went on to serve on the Board of Regents for this state just as my mother, Doreen Stiles Poitevint, does today.
Combing my mother’s family and my father’s family, over 30 of us have attended the University of Georgia. The question is, who enjoyed it the most?
I, of course, would like to claim this as a historical family fact for many reasons.
My first childhood memory is walking down a sidewalk on my father’s shoulders to beat on a bus. Well, I asked my father for details regarding this memory about 10 years ago. He said, ‘When you were a little girl you used to love to go to Athens to see your grandparents and see the Dawgs play. The day you are remembering is the day we drove up to Athens, walked down University Drive, and I stood on the street with you on my shoulders, as you beat on a bus yelling for Herschel Walker as he drove away from Athens to begin his career as a professional football player.’
My treehouse, established at my home in Bainbridge in 1981, stands today filled with years of bulldog bumpersticker collecting. Such examples include a fifth grade church youth group trip purchase. That sticker read, ‘Damn right I’m a Dawg!’ In 1993, I laughed and showed my treehouse to my neighbor. My neighbor was Kirby Smart, who as you may know, went on to play for the Dawgs from 1995-98.
I was sent to a small private school south of Bainbridge, Georgia, down in Quincy, Florida. I was punished while in the fourth grade for organizing bets on the Georgia/Florida game. After receiving my school punishment and talks with my teachers and parents, my father proceeded to laugh hysterically and refused to punish me further.
I remember little things like the fact that my diaper covers and then eyelet panties were hand painted by a local artist with bulldogs and my name to be worn daily.
While in my senior year at the Darlington School, I shall never forget the day that Sam Moss, a Darlington faculty member and college guidance counselor, told me to go get an application for Alabama; he didn’t think I would make the cut at UGA. It was quite a pleasure the day that Sam Moss announced in chapel the colleges that members of my high school class would attend. And then he said it: ‘Meg Poitevint – The University of Georgia.’I smiled in prayer that day in chapel. I knew, as my treehouse wall read: ‘God must be a bulldog.’
While working in DC at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, I was known to leave after working a Friday evening event and drive through the night to make it for kick-off on Saturday in Athens,
So, the question remains, who loves the place the most?
It’s a tie – between my grandfather, Loyd Poitevint, and me. I loved beating on the bus in the early ’80’s, he loved Coach Butts in the ’40’s. The difference is I finished in five years -(I needed a fifth fall)- ‘Granddaddy’ finished in 11. He entered the University in 1936. He left to serve his country during World War II. Upon returning to the United States, he wanted most to finish his degree from the University of Georgia. He graduated in May, 1947. As many of you know, I lost my grandfather in April, 2004. When I saw my grandfather for the last time, he was missing one thing. So I went and got it. Upon my return, I reached down and held my grandfather’s hand and put his 1947 University of Georgia class ring on his finger – just as he had worn it for so many years. I smiled and turned to my family saying, ‘No one loved the University the way he did.’
All of this to say, and you would know – my treehouse says it too – ‘Georgian by birth, Bulldog by the grace of God.”
