About Our People: Adrian Howell

December 17, 1913 – August 21, 2003

The son of Ulysses Newton and Mary Pearl Williams Howell, Adrian Howell was born in Rome in 1913. He graduated from Darlington School and Emory University where he was a member of Delta Tau Delta. After graduating from college, he worked with a CPA firm in Atlanta and at Eagle Stove Works in Rome. In 1940, he married the former Mary Edwina Jackson of Miami. Together they moved to a farm in North Carolina, where they lived and worked until returning to Rome in 1947.

After operating a furniture store in Cedartown, the longtime businessman purchased Rush Realty, a Rome insurance and real estate business. He operated the company for several years with his father before expanding into the development of residential subdivisions including: North Hills, Fieldwood, Rivermont and parts of Horseleg Estates and Saddle Mountain; and commercial real estate, including Professional Court and Eastgate. He was honored with membership in the Greater Rome Board of REALTORS Hall of Fame in 1996.

Adrian was a lifelong member of the First Baptist Church of Rome, where he was a deacon and taught youth Sunday school. He played clarinet in the Lindale Band while in high school, and for a time as a young man with the Toastmasters, and served as co-chair of the 1955 March of Dimes campaign. In the 1960s, he served on the Rome School Board. He also served on the Board of the Georgia Mental Health Association and was instrumental in establishing and obtaining funding for STAR House, a halfway house for recovering alcoholics.

He was a longtime member of the Coosa Country Club and the Allatoona Yacht Club, where he was the honorary fleet grandfather. In retirement, his favorite volunteer activity was with the Friends of the Sara Hightower Regional Library.

Adrian Howell passed away in 2003 in Atlanta.