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His mother had recently passed away, so Cabaniss brought his family to the old home place in Maxeys, Ga., a genial bump in an Oglethorpe County road.

The white, two-story house built in1840 needed work from shingles to cellar, but Cabaniss had reason to do the work with love: He would be the fourth generation of Cabanisses to raise his family in the house.

Moving a wife and two school-aged children to the country took courage, and his wife, Barbara, a school counselor in the county, remembers the first time she bought ice cream at a grocery store ten miles from the house.

"I was so disappointed when I got home and realized the ice cream had melted," she says, laughing now."I learned to take a cooler with me from then on. But I wouldn't trade living in the country for anything. We came to realize we had made the right decision when our children came back when they were grown and thanked us for moving here." The Cabanisses have worn out three cars driving the family over several counties through the years, but they know they made the right choice when they moved to Maxeys.

Bill Cabaniss is a country man, but he's much more: nice, soft-spoken, humble, and genuinely interested in others. He is also a Franklin College graduate, with a bachelor's degree in chemistry earned in 1968, president of the Commercial Bank in Crawford, Georgia, and an always busy community volunteer.

Crawford sits on Highway 78 in Oglethorpe County, hugging nearby Lexington so closely it's hard to tell where one town ends and the other begins. Herds of cattle gently graze upon farmland that comes to the town limits. Athens isn't far away, but this is the country, where neighbors know each other by their names or the color of their trucks.

Coming home to Maxeys, which is ten miles from his office in Crawford, was special for Cabaniss.

"It was great growing up on a farm and in the country," he says, "but, it was hard because all the work was manual labor then. We were just moving into automation when I went off to college."

Maxeys had one distinctive feature that has drawn families for the last half century. A fortunate farmer's legacy provided free tuition for generations of students from the town headed to college. A.T. Brightwell grew up in Maxeys but lived most of his life in Alabama, gaining his wealth in the cotton industry, and he created a trust for children living in Maxeys to attend any college or university of their choice.

"I was the third or fourth person to use the scholarship," says Cabaniss. "Both of my children [Melanie and Mark Cabaniss] were educated on it."

He knew all along he would choose the University of Georgia, and not only because it was just across the Oconee River in Clarke County: His parents and all of his siblings were educated at UGA. The youngest of five, Bill Cabaniss is the only brother, however, who didn't study agriculture.

"I was Arts and Sciences all the way," he says. "My mother said she already had three farmers in the family, and she wanted a doctor or a dentist." He studied zoology for several years but changed to chemistry his senior year.

After serving four years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force, Cabaniss moved to Athens with Barbara to work and start a family. Though he was unsure what his career might be, he "backed into banking" on the advice of a family friend. With no background in business, Cabaniss learned banking "hands on-through management training in the different departments" and by attending banking schools.

The opportunity to leave Athens and move into the Cabaniss homestead in Maxeys was right for the Cabaniss family and Oglethorpe County, too. Cabaniss threw himself into the community like he'd never left. His work with Oglethorpe County's recreation program extends from coaching little league baseball and basketball to serving as vice president of the Youth Sports Association and chairman of the Oglethorpe County Recreation Commission. Cabaniss also played a crucial role in raising funds for two new ballfields and lighting for the original field, beginning with only a few volunteers and the expanding the effort.

"He's a solid fundraiser," says Russ Yeaney, UGA College of Education dean emeritus. "Bill has a gift for raising money not only for Oglethorpe County but for organizations like the YMCA and the Boy Scouts. He has a way that businesses respond to." Yeaney is immediate past-president of the Oglethorpe County Rotary Club where Bill has been treasurer since its inception.

In addition to his obligations with the Oglethorpe County Industrial Authority's Economic Development/Water committee, the board of directors for Athens Technical College, and the Crawford-Lexington Church of Christ, Cabaniss volunteers for the local fire department.

Incredibly, he's also in his fourth term on the Oglethorpe County Board of Education, and serves as chairman this year. He originally ran when his children were in the school system because he thought it was a good opportunity to make a contribution to their education. That opportunity has lasted 13 years.

"People grow up and leave their rural roots," he says. "But a lot of them return after they've finished their careers and retire. People do go home again, especially to rural areas. It's a good setting for a fine quality of life.