The four Rome High School seniors who perished in the 1946 Winecoff Hotel fire are remembered with pride by their friends.
"I think about that time so much because the people who were lost were so worthwhile and had so much to contribute to Rome," their classmate Hilda Christian Sapp said 60 years later. "Some might not have stayed here, but they were the finest that could be picked to represent the community."
Charles Wilkes Keith, 15, was circulation manager of the school’s Roman Staff and senior class historian. He was serving as a reporter to the Georgia Youth Assembly.
He also held offices in the Commercial and Radio clubs and was a member of the Scribblers, Typing and Photography clubs.
"He was a wonderful young man who had such a good future ahead of him," said Gerry Andrews Smith, who attended Maple Street Baptist Church with him.
Keith's older brother, Julius Cleveland Jr. is buried in the same lot of Myrtle Hill Cemetery as Floyd County’s first World War II casualty.
George William "Billy" Walden, 16, was the left halfback for the Rome High football team. In a 1947 yearbook memorium, his longtime friend Brady Drummond wrote that the star athlete "had every reason in the world to be a swellhead, but he wasn’t."
He was the president of the Hi-Y Club, secretary of the French Club and member of the Scribblers Club when he died. He also served as president of the Youth Fellowship and Sunday school classes at his church.
"Whenever he was called upon to help, he always did," Drummond wrote.
The Rome High School football squad served as honorary pallbearers at his funeral.
Dallas Lamar Brown Jr., 16, had been the star of the most recent citywide badminton tournament and an avid stamp collector. In his senior year, he was a member of the school’s Radio, Reading, Spanish, Photography, Scribblers and Hobby clubs.
Brown, an only child, had called his parents before going to bed a few hours before the fire broke out. The Rome paper reported that his mother asked him to pin his money in his pajama pocket - and it was the money in his pocket that helped his parents identify his body.
"Before the fire (his parents) were involved in every aspect of community life. After the fire, they became almost total recluses," said Howard Mathis, who later handled the funeral services for Dallas Sr. and Mamie Brown at Daniel's Funeral Home.
James Earnest "Buzz" Slatton, 16, had been chosen "Clerk of the House” at the Georgia
Youth Assembly. His friend, Alvis Miller, said he loved the outdoors and had a powerful singing voice.
A trumpet player, he was a member of the school’s marching and concert bands.
"He wanted to be governor of Georgia, and there's no doubt in my mind that he would have been," said Anne Salmon Culpepper, who was a freshman at the time of his death.
The male members of the Rome High Band served as an honorary escort at his funeral.
Charles "Bill" Berry of Cedartown, a bowling champion who was in Atlanta to defend his title that weekend, was also killed in the Winecoff Hotel fire.
Berry, 25, won the Southeastern championship in 1941 but gave it up to serve three years in the U.S. Marines. He won it back in 1945 and had just returned from tournaments in Washington and Baltimore, according to newspaper reports.
