Wednesday, January 9, 2013 March 19, 2014
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GRAND OPENING IN NEWNAN - MARCH 19TH
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discovering doc
Wilcox’s Holliday novel leads to thrilling nomination By Bradley Hartsell bradley@newnan.com
Victoria Wilcox did some fact-checking and found the timeline of Doc Holliday’s accepted history didn’t add up. She spent the next 18 years researching the true life of Holliday, and now, Wilcox has been nominated for Georgia Author of the Year. “I was thrilled to receive that nomination,” said Wilcox, who lives in Peachtree City with her husband, Ronald. “It’s a wonderful acknowledgement of the work that I’ve done. It brings a focus back to our Georgia history. People don’t really write about history about Georgia. They shy away from it.” After nearly two decades of research, Wilcox released the first of her historical fiction trilogy, “Inheritance,” in May. The series, titled “Southern Son: The Saga of Doc Holliday,” has the second book, “Gone West,” being released in May. Wilcox certainly did her research — scouring through
uled to spea k at the Senoia Historical Society on Feb. 13, but the event was postponed to later this month. “I never set out to be an expert on Doc Holliday,” admitted Wilcox. “I just wanted to know how a western legend came together with the South’s greatest novel.” T h at novel is “Gone With the Wind,” in a twist of fate Wilcox never could get off her mind. Her fascination began after spotting a white-columned house in Fayetteville. Always a histor y a f icion ado, Wi lcox sensed something significant about the home, which struck her as beautiful even as it was dilapidated. The house was, in fact, of historical significance, something Wilcox found out when her parents visited from California. Wanting to show them around the town, she inquired about the house to the local historical society and found out it was Doc Holliday’s
deeds, titles, arrest and public records — enough to write the definitive biography on the misunderstood western hero. Instead, she chose to write what she formally calls biographical historical f iction. Simple historical fiction takes a place and time in history and dramatizes the people and the story. Biographical historical fiction dramatizes the actual events of real historical figures. “I chose the novel format, partly because I like historical fiction,” Wilcox said. “I didn’t want people who just like history to read this. I wanted everybody to read this. I hoped it would be a beach book. “People who read it will call, who aren’t history people, and tell me they learned so much. And that’s what I want.” As a result of her work, Wilcox has become one of the foremost experts on Doc Holliday. She now travels the country to present at panels and give speeches, sharing the true stories she learned of Holliday. Wilcox was originally sched-
Victoria Wilcox, author of “Southern Son: The Saga of Doc Holliday, Book 1: Inheritance.”
W ilcox completed year s of research in order to discover “how a western legend came together with the south’s greatest novel, “Gone With the Wind.”
uncle’s house. Holliday played there often as a child, along with his cousins. To h ei g h te n t h e s tor y,
Melanie Hamilton, the fictional best friend of “Gone With the Wind” protagonist Scarlett O’Hara, is based on Mattie Holliday, according to Wilcox. Mat t ie Hol l iday wa s Doc Holliday’s cousin and teenage s we e t he a r t . O n W i lcox ’s website, she describes the intertwining of fates, “Doc Holliday being in love with Melanie from ‘Gone With the Wind’ — like literature and legend come together, the Old South meeting the Wild West and falling in love.”
The house, disheveled and useless, was set to be torn down and turned into a parki ng lot. Wi lcox went i nto action to preserve the history of the old house. Opening in 1996, it now stands today as the Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House Museum. Initially, that’s all Wilcox, the founding director of the museum, set out to do — to preserve the history of the old Holliday house. But “facts” and timelines of Holliday’s life kept turning up false. The research and truth
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Photo by Clay Neely
Ray Sluk, president of Falcon Aviation Academy.
Falcon Flight Academy now one of China’s most valuable assets by Clay Neely clay@newnan.com As China continues to reign supreme as the world’s top exporter, the “Made in China” label has become a begrudgingly accepted fact of life in the world of business. However, one entrepreneur with a location in Coweta County has quietly turned the tables and now has become one of China’s most valuable assets. As president of Falcon Flight Academy, Ray Sluk has spearheaded the small flight academy into a destination point for future pilots from around the world. Falcon has schools in small Georgia airports, including Peachtree City, Ath-
Sluk has never looked back — acquiring his private license by that December, his instrument rating the following March, and then his commercial license. Sluk then invested in the Falcon Aviation Academy, purchasing a 20 percent stake in their stock. As he became further involved with the company, he suggested that the academy could become an international flight school through the use of the contacts he had made over the years. The company allowed Sluk to spearhead the expansion, and, in 2006, they received their first students from India. Two years later,
ens and the Newnan-Coweta Airport — Whitlock Field. Sluk originally left Peachtree City for China in 1991 and spent the next 12 years overseas as FedEx Vice President for China, Japan and Central A merica before return i ng home in 2003. “I walked into Falcon Flight Academy in September 2004 and asked about learning to fly,” Sluk said. “The instructor said he could take me up tomorrow.” However, Sluk didn’t feel like waiting. “It was 4 in the afternoon so I looked outside at the planes and asked him, ‘Can we go today?’ and he said, ‘Sure, let’s go.’” From that point forward,
academy, page 6A
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