Longtime award-winning Augusta Chronicle columnist Glynn Moore dies at 73

Joe Hotchkiss, Augusta Chronicle
·3 min read
Glynn Moore, whose Augusta Chronicle column contained humorous takes on contemporary issues and fond memories that entertained readers for more than 30 years, died Jan. 2 at age 73.
Glynn Moore, whose Augusta Chronicle column contained humorous takes on contemporary issues and fond memories that entertained readers for more than 30 years, died Jan. 2 at age 73.

Glynn Moore – a longtime Augusta Chronicle editor whose decades of humorous columns expertly distilled his random observations through his trademark dry wit – died Jan. 2 after a long illness.

Moore, 73, joined The Chronicle in 1988 as a copy editor but soon began charming readers with a column initially titled “Moore or Less.” It ran in the newspaper for 31 years until health problems spurred an absence from his job, intended to be temporary but becoming permanent.

“I realized recently that I have written it at least once a week for 40 years, which amounts to about 100 billion columns, give or take,” he quipped in his last regularly scheduled Chronicle column, on Christmas Day 2017. “It's been fun all the way.”

Moore grew up in LaFayette, in Georgia’s mountainous northwest corner. He and his siblings would help their farmer father tend livestock and crops – or both, when Moore ploughed fields with a mule.

He left dry land in 1970 to join the U.S. Navy, where he became a yeoman, second-class petty officer, and discharged in 1974.

After graduating from the University of Georgia, Moore worked at The Moultrie (Ga.) Observer and Prattville (Ala.) Progress, becoming city editor at both papers. He covered just about every newspaper beat, but perhaps the biggest story he remembered from Moultrie was meeting, falling in love with and marrying an Observer colleague, the former JoAn Martin. Until her death in 2022, her sharp wit matched his for their entire marriage.

In his own words: Glynn Moore: 2020 was the year to sit one out

He also mentored other writers. Kevin Hogencamp, now the deputy city manager of Atlantic Beach, Fla., worked at The Chronicle during the 1980s but got his first newspaper job out of college at the Observer. When longtime editor Dwain Walden announced his retirement in 2018, Hogencamp credited him and Moore with strengthening his professional skills.

“I pulled into town as a snot-nosed 22-year-old with a new journalism degree, but who’d only written about sports,” Hogencamp told the Observer. “By the time I left 13 months later to go to work in a larger community, he and Glynn Moore, the city editor, transformed me into a bona-fide journalist.”

Moore used his keen editorial eye not only for spotting mistakes but also for finding the right words or phrases that often elevated writers' good stories to become great stories.

Personal passion sometimes dovetailed with his work. A fervent car enthusiast, Moore’s development of The Chronicle’s weekly auto section won over a new population of readers. When he published photos of small portions of unidentified automobiles, fans would flood his email with responses.

Moore’s columns accumulated several Georgia Press Association awards. His vivid storytelling turned readers into eyewitness participants of whatever Moore recalled, from getting a molar pulled as a Navy recruit to his wife’s reaction to his bringing home a battered but free set of golf clubs.

Glynn Moore and his wife, JoAn, pose in this undated photo. The couple met while both worked at a south Georgia newspaper, The Moultrie Observer.
Glynn Moore and his wife, JoAn, pose in this undated photo. The couple met while both worked at a south Georgia newspaper, The Moultrie Observer.

Column topics turned more serious in recent years as Moore shared developments in his battle with leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, which disrupts normal production of blood cells. One of his last columns was filed in October 2017, four months after an Atlanta oncologist gave Moore three months to live.

Moore’s final Chronicle column, a droll look back at COVID-dominated 2020, ran on New Year’s Day 2021.

In February 2019, he offered then-Chronicle columnist Bill Kirby a health update. “I can't write a column right now, but some of my former readers have stayed in touch,” Moore said. “My church, Wesley Methodist, and my Sunday school class have nourished me in body and soul.”

His memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Jan. 6 – the day after JoAn’s birthday – at Wesley United Methodist Church, 825 N. Belair Rd., Evans. Visitation begins at 10 a.m.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Chronicle columnist Glynn Moore delivered decades of laughs, insights