Abit Massey, president emeritus of the Georgia Poultry Federation (GPF) and well-known poultry business lobbyist, died June 14, 2024. He was 96.
For 48 years, Massey served because the president of the Georgia Poultry Federation. He joined the group in 1960, retiring in 2009. However he remained energetic as president emeritus.
“To say Abit was a person of integrity, character and kindness is an understatement,” stated Nationwide Hen Council Interim President Gary Kushner. “He knew everybody’s identify, and everybody knew his. He was the sort of person who when chatting with him in a room of 200 individuals, he made you are feeling like the one one there. His work helped to place Georgia’s poultry business on the map, constructing the inspiration for its nationwide prominence right this moment. He was a titan of the business and can actually be missed. Our ideas and prayers are with Kayanne and the household.”
Massey was born on Nov. 14, 1927, in Corridor County, Georgia. He graduated from the College of Georgia in 1949 with a enterprise diploma and earned a regulation diploma from Emory College in 1955. In 1959, he grew to become director of the Georgia Division of Commerce, now the Division of Financial Improvement, the place he created the Vacationer Division and constructed the primary Georgia Welcome Station, in line with the Digital Library of Georgia.
Massey met then-Kayanne Shoffner in 1959 throughout her reign as Miss Georgia, and the 2 married and moved to Gainesville, Georgia, the place Kayanne, continued her diploma at Brenau College. The Masseys had been longtime supporters and donors of Brenau, together with donating a statue of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and nominating the college for a Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities.
Due to his arduous work and dedication that helped propel Georgia’s poultry business into nationwide and international prominence, Massey was inducted into the Poultry Business Corridor of Fame in 2019 after advocating for the poultry business and working to broaden analysis within the discipline.
Different honors Massey earned embody the 1986 UGA Alumni Advantage Award, the U.S. Poultry & Egg Affiliation’s 2012 Harold E. Ford Lifetime Achievement Award, and the inaugural Medallion of Honor for Service to the UGA Faculty of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences. The Georgia Poultry Laboratory Community sits on Abit Massey Manner simply off state Route 365 in Gainesville, Georgia.
Most not too long ago, the College of Georgia introduced in late 2023 that it was naming a classroom on the college’s new poultry science constructing after Massey.
