Editor’s Note: This feature on former Bainbridge High School Bearcats All-State and All-Southern fullback Fred Barber is the second in a series of features on the four outstanding sports figures who will make up  the second class to be inducted into the Decatur County Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday, March 3, at Bainbridge College’s Charles H. Kirbo Regional Center.

By JOE CRINE

Sports Editor

Fred Barber, who is a pharmacist in Blackshear, Ga., is a member of the  University of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and the National Football Foundation College Hall of Fame.

He said his biggest honor as a collegiate was playing for coach Vince Dooley and his University of Georgia Bulldogs staff for one year. From 1958 to 1960, he played under former Bearcats head coach Spencer “Onion” Davis, who was a member of the first Decatur County Sports Hall of Fame class last year.

He is Bainbridge High School’s second leading rusher of all time, with 3,357 yards. He scored 42 touchdowns and converted 17 extra points. He was an All-State fullback with the Bearcats in 1959.

Barber was a charter member and speaker with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He was also an All-State catcher for the Bearcats’ baseball team and an All-State sprinter for the Bearcats’ track team.

He was on a state-record-setting 440-yard relay team.

In 1960, he was a member of the Prep All-America Classic National High School Football Team. He lettered with Georgia in 1962, 1963 and 1964.

Barber and his wife, Julie Musgrove Barber, have been married for 44 years.