Buck Adams Is Going to Vote, No Matter What, With an Athens, Ga., Ballot

Although more than 30 percent of registered voters didn’t make it to the polls on Election Day this year, it would take an 8.0 earthquake to keep 71-year-old Cuyler “Buck” Adams from exercising his right to vote.

“I’ve voted since I was 18,” said Adams. He’s retired from his moving and storage business in Athens. “I’ve lived in other countries for seven years, and I’ve never ever missed (a vote).”

But casting his ballot wasn’t always easy.  Adams. a third-generation Athenian, spent 7 years in Brazil working with Peace Corps.  During the first two years, he lived in the interior of Brazil, and all mail was inspected by the Brazilian postal service before being sent by airmail back to the U.S.

“One of the (absentee) ballots I got back then … had been opened with a razor three times and glued back shut with mucilage,” Adams said. “They did that routinely to see if there was any cash, money, or things like that.”

During the remaining five years he spent in Brazil as a Foreign Service officer, more than one of his absentee ballots never made it home to be counted.

“On a trip back to the States one time, I went by the voter registrar’s office and found out that I’d been taken off the active list because it hadn’t gotten back,” Adams said.

Adams’ commitment to voting stems from both family tradition and a sense of civic responsibility. 

Adams’ father, Floyd Adams, born in 1904, was an Athens native who worked for a local business for 49 years. Floyd Adams was active with the Rotary Club and other civic organizations and was elected twice to the Athens City Council in the 1950s.

“When my father was a city councilman, I have vivid memories of people calling him at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning to complain about a streetlight being out,” Adams said.

In addition to making voting and civic life a priority, his parents also preached personal responsibility to their four children.

“He was always concerned that we’d be knowledgeable about what was going on around us,” Adams said.  “So that all fostered an interest in politics.”

Adams and his wife, Diane, have made sure this interest didn’t stop with their generation.  One of Adams’ sons, John Adams, who currently lives in Japan, recently hand-delivered his absentee ballot to the Board of Elections office on Washington Street.

John Adams had come to show his own son the UGA campus, as part of a larger college tour. Back in Japan, John Adams keeps the family tradition of civic engagement alive.  “He works two or three days for the Tokyo municipal government, working with foreign exchange programs,” Adams said.

Adams’ commitment to civic life goes way beyond voting responsibility.  After returning from Brazil, Adams served as the director of community development for Athens. Diane Adams says her husband is always on top of local affairs even when he’s not actively serving in a government post.  

“(He is) always paying attention, knowing who the commissioners are, call(ing them) up if need be to just ask a question or make a statement about something,” Diane Adams said.

In recent years, Adams has been a member of the Athens Community Council on Aging and now is on the advisory council for one of their programs, the Athens Area Village, which provides services to keep older Athens residents in their homes longer.

“When I first met him, I thought ‘What a cheerful man,’” said Mary Ellen Quinn, former chairperson of the Athens Community Council on Aging Board of Directors. “Buck always was a strong contributor in many ways, posing questions, making us think things through, providing support, being very active in the different programs.”