Phil Gingrey: “I rise to thank the reverend Dr. Bob Patterson for his message today. Bob is no stranger to the halls of the United…”

“I rise to thank the reverend Dr. Bob Patterson for his message today. Bob is no stranger to the halls of the United States House or to Georgia congressmen named Phil. When he was a young man growing up in Hall County, Georgia, in the 1970s, he was appointed to serve as a House page by then Congressman Phil Landrum, and later, he was on detached duty with the House Press Gallery during the Nixon impeachment inquiry. But Bob did not answer to the siren song of politics. He returned to Georgia to finish college, and then he headed to Texas for seminary. Ministers are not known for staying in one place too long, but Bob has made his home at the First Baptist Church of Warm Springs, Georgia, since 1986. Warm Springs, Georgia, should sound familiar to those who take a strong interest in American history. Even before he was elected President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a frequent visitor and a part-time resident. He was convinced that the warm spring water that existed there had a healing effect on his polio, and he set up an institute in this west Georgia community where other victims of the disease, many of them children, could come for care. FDR built a house in Warm Springs that is known as the Little White House, and it was in this house in 1945 that the President died. FDR saw Warm Springs as a place to serve others, and Bob Patterson has carried on that tradition in the heart of Meriwether County.”