It started with a few words about his late father.

Hampton native Paul Chappell knew he couldn’t stand up in front of the crowd at the funeral and say what he needed to say off the cuff. So he sat down and wrote a little story about his dad that the family printed on a single page and gave to those who came to pay their respects.

His sister’s reaction surprised him. “Wow. You should write stuff more often,” she said. At the time the two of them just laughed about it.

This was in 2011. About three years later Chappell and his wife took a brief vacation for the sole purpose of writing down some of their family history to pass along to their children.

“We didn’t have laptops, “ he said. “We took ink pens and legal pads. We drank coffee, walked on the beach and wrote for a week.”

Those stories ended up in a bag on the floor of their closet for five years until, again at his sister’s urging, Chappell started a blog.

“I pulled out those old legal pads and turned them into stories,” he said.

The blog is called “Georgia Bred.” It began with a very small following, consisting only of family and friends. Since he was born and reared in Henry County, graduating in 1974 from Henry County High School, it is no surprise that some local folks would be among his core followers.

“All of my people are buried in Hampton,” he said. “I have a lot of ties to that area.”

Chappell did not expect the reactions he got and the way his work has continued consistently since it began.
I’m not a professional writer,” he said. “I didn’t take any journalism classes in school or anything like that.”

But after he finished with the stories on those legal pads, his readers responded positively so he kept on writing. He has been putting out two columns per week since July of 2019.

Perhaps it was inevitable that some of his regular readers would eventually want him to put together a book. According to Chappell, a number of his Hampton friends requested something they could give to other friends as a gift. So he sifted through those 200 or so columns and selected 60 for that publication.

“I cleaned them up and made it look like I knew something about the English language,” he said.

The book is titled “Georgia Bred: Stories That Shape Us.” It is available on Amazon and through his website.

“I’ve been blown away and surprised at where this has taken me,” Chappell said of his writing success.

The author still works a full-time day job. Chappell has worked in horticulture for decades, and in 1994 he moved his family to their current home of Pine Mountain so that he could take a job at Callaway Gardens. He left that position in 2002 when he and a friend started their own tree farming company, growing and selling trees to the landscape industry.
While obviously having their roots in Georgia, Chappell’s stories have an appeal that goes well beyond one state or region. “People who read these stories see themselves – their own childhoods, their own parents, their own family vacations, whatever,” he said.

“I think if you grew up in a small town anywhere, you would find yourself in these stories.”

To check out Paul Chappell’s weekly columns or to order his book, visit georgiabred56.com. You can also read his columns in the Times.