A class by himself: Longtime Augusta University political science professor dies at 94

Dr. Ralph H. Walker, the longtime Augusta University professor and expert on local and state politics, has died.

Walker died Aug. 15 at Brandon Wilde Pavilion in Evans, just two days after celebrating his 94th birthday. He was laid to rest Aug. 19.

"Ralph was a kind, simple, humble but generous person that requested privacy on his passing," his widow, Monica, posted on social media Sunday. "He wanted no 'hoopla and fuss.'"

The Pennsylvania native and U.S. Air Force veteran started his professional career in the aerospace industry, working at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Huntsville, Alabama. His work as a technical writer allowed him to cross paths with some of the U.S. space program's first astronauts.

Seeking a job change, Walker returned to school to earn a doctorate in political science and public administration from the University of Georgia. As he told The Augusta Chronicle in 2009, he worked part-time at UGA's Institute of Government and in 1969 was brought on at then-Augusta College for a one-year contract.

"And I had a one-year contract every year since," he said.

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Walker made the most of his time in Augusta. As an elected member of the Richmond County Board of Education, he helped create John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School in 1981. When Augusta consolidated its city and county governments in 1995, Walker worked behind the scenes as a consultant and writer.

Walker was AU's first chairman of its political science department. He also created the Augusta College Research Center and implemented the school's master' degree program in public administration.

But it was his knowledge and insight of local and regional politics that made him the community's go-to expert on hot election races and hot-button issues.

Augusta politics even has traces of Walker's DNA. Among his former students were two who became Augusta mayors - Charles DeVaney, from 1984 to 1996, and Deke Copenhaver, from 2005 to 2015.

DeVaney once worked as Walker's graduate assistant. Though Copenhaver never considered himself a politician, while accepting an AU alumni award in 2021 he still remembered a sage piece of advice from Walker: If you don’t love politics, don’t get involved.

Walker once estimated he had taught close to 10,000 students in his long academic career. Technically he retired in 2000, but he stayed on AU's faculty as a classroom teacher until the end of 2009 at age 79.

Memorials can be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Pl., Memphis, Tennessee 38105.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: A class by himself: Longtime Augusta University political science professor dies at 94