When former Athens City Councilman Johnny Crutcher died this week, everyone from the mayor to the high school girls basketball coach had stories to share about him.

Eddie Murphree, Athens High School physical education teacher and girls basketball coach, probably captured him best.

“He was kind of gruff, and he didn’t mind getting after you,” Murphree said. “But when he had time to talk to you, he’d talk your ear off. He loved Athens, and he’d talk about the history of the city. He’d talk about what it was like when he was in high school. He was one of a kind.”

General Patton

Murphree first met Crutcher when he was a kid and his father was a local coach. But he didn’t really get to know the man until he was a teenager with a summer job in the city’s Cemetery, Parks and Recreation Department. Crutcher was the department head in the 1980s.

“I helped weed eat and mow the ballfields and cemeteries, and he was the director of all that,” Murphree said. “It was springtime, so softball and baseball were going on, and the parks were filled with people. We all got called into the rec center because he wanted to have a meeting about trash not getting picked up and mowing not being done right.

“As a 17-year-old, I thought General Patton had walked into the room,” Murphree said of Crutcher entering the meeting. “He made it clear his expectations, what the community expected and how he wanted us to give the city a good day’s work. He put the fire under me. We all left out of there, and a bunch of city trucks were leaving so we could go get stuff caught up.”

Murphree laughingly recalled how Crutcher would sometimes stop by work sites where employees were supposed to be mowing. He would get out of his truck, put his hand on your mower, and if the engine was cold, he’d know you hadn’t been working in a while.

Hairy situation

Murphree remembers when, as a senior in high school, he decided to grow a little facial hair.

“My mom and dad wanted me to shave, but I had senior-itis and was rebelling,” Murphree said. “One day, Johnny pulled up in the truck and told me I better get that face shaved clean before I come in to work tomorrow. I went home at quitting time and shaved. My dad had told Johnny I had senior-itis and wouldn’t shave, but Johnny got me to shave. I did it out of respect for him.”

One lesson Murphree learned from Crutcher was giving as much as you ask of others.

“In the summer, we had youth league tournaments, and the seniors would be working,” Murphree said. “He’d be right there taking tickets, cooking hamburgers, out there dragging the fields. Not only did he have us working, but he’d roll up his sleeves and get out in the trenches with us. That would motivate us to work harder.”

A little feisty

Holly Hollman, grant coordinator and communications specialist for the city of Athens, first got to know “Crutch,” as he was known to friends, when she was a reporter covering Athens City Council for The Decatur Daily. Crutcher served as a councilman from 2004 to 2008.

One of Hollman’s favorite memories involved a four-hour work session and meeting she was covering, she said.

“Mr. Crutcher was serving as council president. There was some spirited debate between Councilman Crutcher and Councilman Wales about a blasting permit request. At one point in the work session, Mr. Crutcher extended an offer, shall we say, for Councilman Wales to meet him outside.

“At the end of the meeting, I asked both of them if they had kissed and made up. They shook hands and laughed. It showed they could disagree and move past it.”

At the time of his death, Crutcher was serving on the city’s alcohol review board. Among other things, the board determines whether a business can obtain a license to sell alcoholic beverages in the city.

Hollman said she will miss Crutcher’s visits to City Hall.

“He always had some history or funny story to share with us in the Mayor’s Office,” she said.

Don’t answer the phone

City Councilman Harold Wales considered Crutcher a very close friend. They go all the way back to when Crutcher was recreation director and Wales’ father worked for him. He appointed Wales to his first board, their kids were about the same age, and they were elected to the council the same year, 2004.

“He kind of took me under his wing and showed me the ropes,” Wales said.

“I remember, it was our very first meeting as elected councilmen, and Mayor Dan Williams was bringing up the budget and how we needed to look at it,” Wales said. “Now, I understood the police department and the fire department budgets, but then they started talking abut ‘GF,’ and I didn’t know what they were talking about.”

Wales leaned over to Crutcher, his friend, and asked what “GF” was. Crutcher replied, aloud in the public meeting for all to hear, “Boy, how did you get elected? It stands for general fund.”

Wales said Crutcher then explained what it consisted of — nearly all of the budgets, including police, fire, public works, streets, mayor’s office and parks and recreation.

Wales recalled another time when he and Crutcher were guests on the Jamie Cooper television show.

“They asked us, ‘How do you deal with all of those phone calls?'” Wales said. “Crutcher told them, ‘Hell, don’t answer the phone!'”

Wales considers Crutcher a friend he will dearly miss.

“He’s an icon here. I hate it for his family and his kids. He is someone I will miss. I learned a lot from him.”

Loyal to friends, city

Mayor Ronnie Marks said he lost a good friend in Johnny Crutcher.

“Our city has lost a classic, Southern character who had a wealth of knowledge about city history, and I have lost a good friend,” said Marks, who served as a fellow councilman with Crutcher.

When Crutcher opted not to seek re-election to the City Council, Marks said then-mayor Dan Williams (who died in 2015) said he appreciated Crutcher’s loyalty to both the city and to him personally. He said Crutcher was a second-generation councilman whose father also served on the council.

Marks said the city extends its sympathy to Crutcher’s wife, Ann, his family and his friends.

“We appreciate his service and will miss him and his visits to City Hall,” Marks said.

Frugal for good cause

Murphree can attest to Crutcher’s dedication to the city.

“Johnny had a knack for getting blood out of a turnip,” Murphree said. “He was real financially savvy. He was gonna try to save the city as much as he could. He was always under budget, and he turned in money he didn’t use. I believe his thought process was to get the workers what they need, but not the Cadillac version, because the utility department might need a bucket truck or the police department might need a car. So, he would take care of Cemetery, Parks and Rec, but he was a team player and wanted to help other departments that might need it more.”

Murphree thinks a little of that rubbed off on him.

“I think it had an influence on me — being aware financially and trying to be frugal with the finances,” he said. “I got a lot of life lessons from him.”

After Crutcher, a former educator, retired from the city, he would return as a substitute teacher when he was needed.

“He might be teaching PE to a bunch of kindergartners,” Murphree said. “He didn’t need the money. He wasn’t getting paid extra. He could have been home watching TV and drinking lemonade, but he loved people, he loved interacting with people and he loved helping people.”