Like anyone blessed with 98 years of life, most of what is written about Jim and these reflections are well-seasoned, none less than 20 years old. We were in the prime of our lives.
We can look at his life through five lenses: pastor, educator, business leader, diplomat, and Rotarian.
Jim Laney was one of my five great mentors along with the late Tom Cousins, Larry Gellerstedt Jr., Ivan Allen Jr. and Zell Miller. That creates a five-by-five matrix that could easily exceed the word count in my budget. So, I will confine my remarks to memories not included in his lovely obituary or his impressive entry in Wikipedia.
As a Rotarian
Jim was inducted into the Rotary Club of Atlanta within months of becoming President of Emory University in 1977. He was a shoo in with no vetting necessary, perhaps a world record for this prestigious civic club. His champions were the senior leadership of Coca-Cola, Trust Company of Georgia, and King & Spalding.
Long time members will recall that we formerly secretly rated every speaker on a 0-100 scale. Only the Board had access to the rankings drawn from a random survey of 20 members each week. To my knowledge only three speakers ever earned a 100 – Sam Nunn, Klaus Halle of Coca-Cola, and Jim Laney for his legendary Thanksgiving address which earned a standing ovation that was rare as hen’s teeth in those days, about one per year. He championed my nomination in 1991 and provided the invocation at my first meeting as President of the Club in 2006. It was the first time that I felt the humility that comes with being prayed for by name in public.
As an educator
Jim was beloved by his students particularly at Emory and at Yonsei University in South Korea. At Emory, those of us at the Vice President’s level used to try to prevent him from walking across campus alone because invariably some enterprising student would tell him about their latest, greatest idea to which he would readily agree. Then the student would show up in our offices and say “Well, President Laney said it was ok.” The only ruse that routinely failed was when they proposed Pepsi machines in the dorms.
As a diplomat
When Jim’s U.S. Government airplane taxied to the gate at Kimpo Airport in Seoul for him to assume his position as Ambassador appointed by President Clinton, he was greeted by hundreds of Korean citizens in addition to the Diplomatic Corps. He addressed the crowd in fluent Korean, which has never happened before or since.
In 1997, I accompanied Governor Zell Miller on a trade mission to South Korea, and I was pleased to have received an invitation to lunch with Ambassor Laney at his official residence, a former palace. I asked Governor Miller if he would like to accompany me and he jumped at the opportunity. It was a lovely, casual meal for three.
When the talk turned to speculation on whether Sen. Nunn would run for an additional term, all three of us correctly predicted that he would not and would return home to Georgia. Then Jim said to Zell “But I told Sam to keep in mind that he would have to drive himself to Kroger just like everyone else and that no one would hold the door for him.” The room grew quiet as both looked at each other and realized that they were in the last years of their positions and that this advice applied to them also.
And it does not appear in any biography, but he went on quiet missions to North Korea after retiring to ease tensions related to nuclear proliferation, accompanied by Sam Nunn and Jimmy Carter.
Dr. Laney told me once upon planning for my first business trip to Seoul that most of the ministers in the government were once his students. I got great access.
As a pastor
At his core Dr. Laney was always a Pastor and we were his flock – Atlantans, Georgians, Americans, and Koreans. The week after the tragic premature death of Rotarian Ivan Allen, III he and I were at a black-tie function at the Buckhead Ritz to celebrate the conclusion of a major capital campaign at Emory when he spied Ivan and Louise Allen looking understandably crestfallen, and he darted over to them, put his arms around them and prayed right there in the ballroom. He was indeed a pastor. All four speakers at his funeral emphasized this part of him.
As a business leader
Two giants of business and philanthropy a generation ago considered Jim as their spiritual counsellor, Robert W. Woodruff and O. Wayne Rollins. Hundreds of millions of dollars changed hands.
The 1979 gift to Emory of $105 million from the Ernest and Emily Woodruff Foundation, the largest such gift to higher education in the nation at the time, was the result of a vision presented by Laney to Woodruff. It was similar in scale to the seminal gift to the Emory Medical School years earlier. Both had the result of moving Emory from a fine regional college and good medical school best known for training at Grady, to national prominence.
In 1985, The Cola-Cola Company changed the formula of the century-old drink with Jim’s approval as a member of the Board of Directors, led by Emory Trustee Roberto Goitzeuta. Jim was so shocked at the public outcry that he arranged to replicate the blind taste tests in the Emory Board Room for eight of us in the administration.
All eight correctly discerned the differences between the original and New Coke, with seven of us preferring the original. The lone dissenter was a closet drinker of the competition, the dreaded P-word. He was not with us much longer, not because of any retaliation by Jim, but because of his own embarrassment.
As a friend
My own planned memorial service has always had Jim Laney delivering my eulogy. This is the closest I will ever come to giving his.
