EDITORIAL: Our country lost a hero

Published 2:24 pm Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Maj. Gen. Peter Boylan was a decorated military veteran who loved his country. 

He also loved this community. 

He believed in service and sacrifice for the greater good. 

He was a powerful advocate for education for many years while at the helm of Georgia Military College and beyond. 

Boylan took a school that was struggling financially and turned it into a well-respected success, righting the foundation for GMC. He worked to open doors to the institution to many students who may otherwise not have been able to attend. 

He advocated for educational improvements not just at GMC but for this community at-large and was instrumental in the success of Communities in Schools of Milledgeville-Baldwin County and other literacy and education programs. 

He was a visionary who also supported the arts and culture of this community, vitally instrumental in the establishment of the Goldstein Center for the Performing Arts, Georgia’s Old Capital Museum and the Oconee River Greenway. 

He was also a believer in ethics and integrity and he had no qualms about shining a light on local government and the questionable decisions and dealings of those in charge. 

He was unabashed in speaking up for what he thought was right. 

He believed in the greater good. 

He wanted Milledgeville to succeed. 

He also believed in the power of journalism. He believed in its ability to serve as a purveyor of truth and transparency, often quoting Thomas Paine, the 18th-century journalist and revolutionary who knew and understood well the role of the Fourth Estate as a powerful weapon for change. 

He was often a critic of this very newspaper — and we are all the better for it. 

Paine once said, “The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”

We lost a doer of great good on Sunday. 

Our community lost one of its best advocates and best critics. 

Our country lost a hero.