Theo Titus

Theodore Titus III (March 12, 1920 – August 16, 2008) was an American journalist, businessman, and politician. He served as a Republican member of the Georgia House of Representatives. He was the uncle of Dina Titus, a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Nevada.[1][2]

Theo Titus
Member of the
Georgia House of Representatives
143rd district
In office
1989–1993
Preceded byAllen Sherrod
Member of the
Georgia House of Representatives
180th district
In office
1993–1999
Succeeded byJohn Bulloch
Personal details
Born
Theodore Titus III

(1920-03-12)March 12, 1920
Thomasville, Georgia, US
DiedAugust 16, 2008(2008-08-16) (aged 88)
Thomasville, Georgia, US
Political partyRepublican
SpouseCamille
ProfessionJournalist

Early years and business

Titus was born March 12, 1920, to Theo Titus, Jr. and Margaret Crovatt Titus, in Thomasville, Georgia.[3] He was the grandson of Theodore Titus, Sr., a distinguished south Georgia jurist, and great-grandson of Col. Henry Theodore Titus, founder and namesake of Titusville, Florida.[4] He served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II, then returned to Thomasville where he owned and operated the Titus Cadillac Company for twenty years. He then worked for the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration (later reorganized as FEMA) for another twenty years.[3]

Political career

In 1988 Titus was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. He ran as a Republican in an area of the state that had, for many years, been represented by Democrats. He served five terms from 1989 to 1999, during a period when his district was reconfigured and renumbered as part of the periodic reapportionment process. Titus served on Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, Game Fish & Parks, and the powerful Appropriations committee.[5]

The Theo Titus (Sr.) House in the Gordon Avenue Historic District

Later years and family

After "retiring", Titus took up an active pastime as a columnist for the Thomasville Times-Enterprise. Over the course of twenty years, from 1986 to 2006, he wrote an estimated 1000 columns on a number of subjects, but mostly about nature. Declining health forced him to suspend his writing, two years prior to his death. His daughter, Tamara Titus, edited a collection of his columns and published them as a book: An Outdoor Heritage-stories from a South Georgia Life.[6]

On August 16, 2008, Titus died in Thomasville, Georgia after a long illness.[3][7] His niece, Dina Titus, serves as a Democrat in the United States House of Representatives from Nevada.[1][2]

In 2018, a daughter, Twitty Titus, announced her intention to run for her father's former House seat. Twitty, a Democrat, sought to unseat the four-term incumbent, a Republican, but lost in the general election.[8][9] A son, Theo Titus, IV earned a degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech, and worked for a time as a broadcast engineer at WXIA in Atlanta followed by "careers in multiple electronics industries and companies". He retired to Tallahassee, Florida, where he is a ham radio operator with the call sign K4MVL[10][11]

See also

Notes
  1. Dina Titus For U.S. Congress
  2. Kris Kitto (March 31, 2009). "Meet the Lawmaker: Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.)". The Hill, Capital Hill Publishing Corp. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  3. Theo Titus III-obituary
  4. Antonio Rafael de la Cova (July 31, 2016). Colonel Henry Theodore Titus: Antebellum Soldier of Fortune and Florida Pioneer. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-61117-657-5.
  5. "Members of the General Assembly of Georgia". State of Georgia. January 1997. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  6. Theodore Titus (January 1, 2005). An Outdoor Heritage: Stories from a South Georgia Life. Pure Heart Press. ISBN 978-1-930907-87-4.
  7. Georgia House of Representatives-Theo Titus III
  8. "Taylor to run again for House seat". Thomasville Times-Enterprise. March 9, 2018. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
  9. "Georgia House of Representatives District 173". Ballotpedia.org. Retrieved November 13, 2018.
  10. "K4MVL". QRZ.com. July 16, 2015. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
  11. "Amateur License – K4MVL – TITUS IV, THEODORE". Federal Communications Commission. January 17, 2018. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
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