Charles Hayslett has been studying and thinking about the ramifications of Georgia’s urban-rural divide for more than a decade now. His blog, “Trouble in God’s Country,” has been credited by the original co-chairs of the Georgia House Rural Development Council with triggering the creation of that body in 2017, and Hayslett presented to that group at its opening session in 2017 and again this year. His work has been published or cited in publications from coast to coast – from The Washington Post to the Sacramento Bee. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s daily “Jolt” column regularly references his research and has referred to his blog as an “unrelenting avalanche of facts and figures” and to him as “one of the smartest thinkers around on the growing divide between Metro Atlanta and the rest of the state.”
“Trouble in God’s Country” – or TIGC – is work he has pursued largely since retiring at the end of 2017. He began his working life as a newspaper journalist, covering government and politics for The Atlanta Journal in Atlanta and Washington through the 1970s. He moved into public relations in 1980 and established his own firm in 1994, which he maintained and managed for more than 20 years. He is a native of Columbus, Mississippi, and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. In 2008, he was named to the inaugural class of the college’s Grady Fellowship and served for several years on the college’s Board of Trust. He is also a former member of the Board of Directors of Georgians for a Healthy Future.