When Barney Walker first set

out to sell concrete in rural Fayette County back in 1953, he did it by

driving around in a pickup truck pulling a two-bag cement mixer, stopping

whenever he saw somebody moving dirt or digging a hole.

He called it "dirt daubing,"

said his oldest granddaughter, Jo Ana Walker, who said it remains the

best way to build business.

That's exactly what she

was doing one day this week, driving around Coweta County in her sales

job with the family company, Walker Concrete.

Jo Ana, 22, graduated in August

from Auburn University with a marketing degree, and came home to become

the third generation of the Walker clan to work for the company, which

turned 50 years old Nov. 1.

Her dad, Doug Walker, is president

of Walker Concrete, which recently earned the distinction of being Fayette

County's oldest continually operating business.

"Paw-paw always said if

you see somebody digging a hole, you should stop and ask if they need

any concrete," Jo Ana explained via cell phone, taking a break driving

up and down Ga. Highway 154 in Coweta.

"But if they already have

a concrete supplier, we don't try to take their business. We'll

ask if they need anything else, like supplies or building materials."

That gentlemanly approach has

always proven successful for Barney Walker, who founded Fayette Concrete

after returning home from the Army in 1953, when the county's population

was barely 8,000 people.

His first customer was homebuilder

Huie Bray, who was trying to convince Atlanta banks that giving mortgages

to build houses in Fayette County wasn't such a hopeless investment.

In a day when the bidding process

associated with public projects didn't exist, and when segregation

remained the norm, Walker was awarded the job that first year to supply

concrete for the new Fayette County Training Center, a complex to house

all grades of the county's black student enrollment. That building

would later become Fayette County Junior High, and today is known as East

Fayette Elementary.

A more recent local project

with the Walker stamp is the new Fayette County Judicial Center on Jimmy

Mayfield Drive.

The big break for Walker came

in July 1960, when construction was beginning on Atlanta Motor Speedway

in nearby Hampton.

"I got a call one day

to deliver $50,000 worth of concrete down there," Barney Walker explains.

"Those were pretty lean days for everybody. There just wasn't

much going on and we were financing jobs by floating the invoices with

the bank."

"When I got that check,

I took it to the bank manager and said, 'I'll never borrow against

an invoice again,' and we haven't," Walker recalled. "It

really helped us learn to operate within our means."

As the company grew and expanded

to seven plants spread across six counties, the name was changed to Walker

Concrete. Today, it is the largest privately owned concrete supplier on

the Southside of Atlanta, doing more than $50 million in sales annually

and employing more than 180 workers and 120 trucks.

Doug Walker helped guide the

company to plants in Conley, Barnesville, Jackson, Jonesboro, Locust Grove

and most recently, Palmetto. Walker supplied the concrete to build Clayton

College and State University, then known as Clayton Junior College, which

named Doug Walker a distinguished alumnus last year.

"We're not the cheapest

concrete on the block," Doug Walker said. "But we don't

want to be the cheapest on the block."

What customers get in return,

said Barney Walker, is quality - and a certain degree of trust.

"We've never been

sued," said the senior Walker. "That's a pretty good record

for somebody to have."

Though it's a messy business

(the company has to account for every drop of runoff and recycles concrete

waste matter using an original process called "Barney Run"),

Jo Ana said she is committed to learning the ropes from the bottom up.

She's been promoted to

sales, which suits her fine, said the 1999 graduate of Fayette County

High, next door to the company's main plant in the heart of Fayetteville.

Her grandfather graduated from FCHS in 1949, and her father graduated

in 1971.

Driving is another matter.

"I've driven a truck

around the yard, but that's it," she said. "The drivers

are the backbone of this company. I have a tremendous amount of respect

for the drivers and what they do."

Jo Ana, the oldest of four

daughters to Doug and Debbie Walker, said there was never any doubt about

coming home one day to work for the company, though there was no pressure

to do so. While she has cousins who've worked occasionally in the

business, none of the Walker grandkids have shown as serious an interest

in concrete as Jo Ana.

The long hours - business

starts before sun-up and often goes until dark - hasn't deterred

her, but it has meant social activities are limited. And while the pay

is OK, she isn't getting rich, she confesses. She hopes to build

a house soon, something reasonable, and move out of the garage apartment

at the family's home on County Line Road.

Meantime, Jo Ana said, she's

willing to drive around the countryside stopping to ask strangers digging

holes if they need concrete.

"You have to earn your

worth, pay your dues," she said.

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