In the news business, “If it bleeds, it leads,” is not always true.
Most people who read my work may think I enjoy exposing corruption in government and with politicians, but really, the stories that I enjoy working on the most are tracking the accomplishments of people who have devoted their lives to making our community better.
Many times, those stories are told after the person has died, but I love to write about people who make a difference while they are still living as opposed to taking a photo of their memorial stone.
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I have found people prefer reading about successful neighbors who do good for the community far better than they do reading about a politician, who they might have supported, getting caught with his or her hand in the till.
Sometimes those stories of people who selflessly sacrifice their time, energy and spirit are harder to come by than finding the grifters who leech off of society, but those stories are out there if one only looks.
In fact, I really did not have to look far to find someone to brag about.
My younger brother Christopher Hudson is three years my junior, but people still have trouble telling us apart. I get called by his name at least once a month because his mug graces billboards all over town advertising his law firm with the slogan “Let’s bring it!”
Just the other day, I got out of my car to go into a store, and a fellow who I have known for years called me Chris by accident. That is no sweat to me. I admire Chris; he is a role model, and I hold him in the highest of esteem as I would anyone who has made remarkable achievements in life and carries a humble air about himself.
As a kid, none of us really had great ambitions for Chris. He was the middle kid; my parents had the heir, the spare and the youngest, Princess Vivian; so, Chris really could not be blamed if he had gone on to a life of mediocre melancholy.
But that is not Christopher Hudson.
Chris has always had a finely tuned moral compass. He has the mind of a military tactician, and he is also fiercely loyal.
When I was in about sixth grade, the middle school bus and elementary bus pulled up at the bus stop near our house at around the same time. Chris had seen me being bullied by this kid named Dean.
Dean was your typical blowhard jerk, and he set his sights on me. Chris witnessed several occasions of me being roughed up, and he went to our dad and asked whether he should stand up for me and teach that bully a lesson.
Dad told him that he needed to teach me a lesson on how to defend myself, and he told Chris exactly what to do.
Unbeknownst to me, Chris hid a baseball bat in the storm drain near the bus stop. He waited until Dean decided to go after me again and emerged wielding that bat like he meant business.
Dean sneered at this red-headed third-grader interrupting his fun and told him to put down the bat and fight fair. Now, mind you, Dean towered over Chris and outweighed him by a good 40 pounds.
Without ever breaking eye contact with his adversary, Chris slowly lowered the bat to the ground and in a split second, he grabbed a handful of sand, threw it into Dean’s face, kneed him in the groin and began to pummel on the boy’s pudgy belly until he turned tail and ran off to escape the little half-pint terror.
I never had a problem with Dean after that.
Chris’ dream early on was to become a police officer, and he seriously considered going to the police academy right after high school, but my mother told him the police academy was not college, and the deal with all the children was that we could live in the house as adults as long as we were in some sort of college or tech school.
Otherwise, we were expected to go off and make our own nests.
My mother really did not like the thought of a police vehicle being parked every night in front of her house.
Instead, Chris went from Augusta State University to UGA and then on to Mercer Law School where he supported himself by working as the produce manager of a grocery store.
The so-called “spare” of the family did not surprise anyone when he was named editor of Mercer Law Review; he had already proven his mettle, going from a barely passing high school kid to a true scholar of the law.
Right out of college, Chris began building what has become an extremely successful law firm. He started with a shingle outside a nondescript building on Greene Street, where he had a backroom office and turned it into one of the biggest personal injury firms in Augusta. He has won several very notable cases.
Chris’ law practice experience led him to run for the chief magistrate position in Columbia County. He ran against his friend and colleague Jason Troiano and lost, but Troiano decided to appoint his former opponent, Chris, to an associate magistrate position.
The two actually had fun running against one another.
My favorite story of watching Judge Hudson on the bench was when he had some guy in his courtroom who had been cited numerous times for keeping a rat hovel of a yard. If memory serves me correctly, the photos of the bushy overgrown land, which was in the middle of a neighborhood, showed signs of rodent infestation.
The conversation between Chris on the bench and the man, who seemed to be able-bodied enough to take care of his property, went something like this:
“Do you know what a scythe is?”
“Um, a sith?”
“No, a scythe, a garden tool, a reaper; you know, you swing it from side to side? Do you know what I am talking about?”
“I guess so, yeah.”
“Good, go to Lowes or Home Depot or Ace or wherever; you might need a scythe, a bulldozer or even a goat to get that property managed. I don’t know, but you have 30 days to clear that property or you are going to be right back in this courtroom, and if that happens, the outcome is not going to be good, so do what you need to do.”
Down came the gavel.
I have to say that I have found that my brother was more entertaining in the courtroom than “Harry” from the old television series Night Court was, and he got some of that flair from one of his mentors, the late Bill Jennings, who was famous for reciting Latin in an almost operatic performance from the bench.
Chris is currently the chief judge for the municipal courts of Blythe, Wrens and Stapleton.
While I know Chris feels he is doing good community service as a judge, that passion for being a first responder had ached at him since he was a teenager, and rather than face a mid-life crisis of youthful dreams unfulfilled by purchasing a new Corvette, he decided to become a cop.
It was my mother who called me and started the conversation, “Do you know what your brother has done? He is going to get himself killed!”
Vapors! Bring on the smelling salts!
Chris entered the police academy, and dog-gone-it, he passed with flying colors.
“When we did the road obstacle course, the instructor got onto me for going too fast,” Chris said with a laugh.
So my kid brother, the spare, is a judge and has spent several years as a road deputy for Burke County and later, Columbia County. He accepts no monetary compensation from the Sheriff’s Office and works regularly as a volunteer, and he is a certified law enforcement officer.
He does that job out of that sense of morality that he inherited from our dad.
If you need to dial 911 in Columbia County, my little kid brother may be the one who responds, and I can guarantee that if that happens, you will be in good hands.
I am truly blessed that Chris Hudson is my brother, and our community is blessed to have him around, even though he likes to gross people out at the dinner table.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
