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Heart doctor and cattleman
Still, it isn't in Kelley's nature to do things abruptly. Moving back to the north Georgia, western North Carolina mountains meant giving up a lucrative medical practice of almost 30 years in Augusta, Georgia. It meant displacing his family. It meant leaving behind an extensive network of professional associates and long-time social friends. While Kelley knew, felt in his heart, what he wanted to do, like any good doctor, he was determined that his actions would lead to a successful outcome. So he decided to move back incrementally. Some years ago, he bought a farm and some pasture land in Clay and Towns counties. This led to the development of a registered Black Angus herd in 1996 providing seed stock as replacement heifers and herd sires to multiple commercial herds in the Southeast. Then he cut back on his medical practice in Augusta and became associated part-time with a small medical practice in Hiawassee. He moved his family to the mountains and started his two younger children in school here to see how well they would adjust to a more rural area before deciding to sell his south Georgia practice and move back full-time. On a warm winter afternoon, I'm standing with Kelley beside a small pond near the old Cal Sherlin home site overlooking part of his 240 acre cattle farm in Warne. The termite-infested house was torn down sometime ago, but the shade trees are still there casting long shadows over the rambling wooden fences that lead to the open meadows below which are sprinkled with coal-Black Angus cattle. Kelley owns a herd of 250 registered Black Angus (including calves), which he raises strictly for breeding. Many of the cattle are on this farm, but some pasture on another smaller farm he owns on Crooked Creek in Georgia, and others graze on rented farmland, he told me. Kelley raises breeding stock. His cattle are not ones that are likely to wind up as steaks on your dinner table. Instead they are genetically superior to most stock and are used for artificial breeding and embryo transfer. Donor cows produce multiple fertilized eggs each year which are then implanted into recipient cows who become surrogate mothers. Kelley says that he can get as many as 40 to 50 pregnancies out of a single cow's fertilized eggs each year. Those fertilized eggs that are not directly transferred are frozen with liquid nitrogen, so they can later be sold to commercial cattle farms or implanted at a later date. Super donor cows are highly prized. Some of them sell for thousands of dollars. Last year, he sold two program pregnant cows to Pine Ridge Farms in south Georgia for $20,000 each, he told me. While Kelley actively works on the farm mending fences, putting up hay and silage and helping with the calving, his medical practice only allows time for him to do it part-time. William Reems, a graduate of the University of Georgia in Athens with a degree in Animal Science serves as Herdsman and handles all the artificial breeding and plans the breeding and embryo program. Of course, operating a registered breeding stock farm is no piece of cake. It is an exacting operation requiring detailed records and up to date technology. The pedigree for each animal goes back at least four generations. Animals are carefully monitored as to weight, rate of gain and even rib-eye size as measured by ultra-sound. Their DNA is also tested. Angus cows live on average 12 to 15 years. They calve once a year. At 14 months, cows reach 60 percent of their full grown body weight. They can be bred then and usually produce their first calf in their second year. In the world of Angus breed stock, the the value of the sexes are not equal. Donor cows are far more valuable than bulls. While some bulls serve as studs, most bulls are used by commercial cattlemen for pasture breeding serving 20 to 30 cows each. Kelley said that Black Angus bulls provide 60 percent of all the beef in America. He said the quality of Black Angus meat is superior to other breeds, and that is why the meat is so much in demand. Many commercial cattle farms crossbreed Black Angus with other breeds such as Hereford. The hybrid mix results in vigorous growth and a high quality meat, according to Kelley. John Kelley grew up on a farm that straddled the Georgia and North Carolina line. When he was small, he and his brothers helped their dad milk 30 to 50 head of cows and collect eggs from several thousand laying hens. Kelley went to school in Hayesville, where he was a starting quarterback on the varsity football team all four years of high school. He also played basketball, ran track and sang in the Glee Cub. He attended the Woods Grove Baptist Church, where he sang in the choir, and on Youth Day, preached and led the Adult Men's Sunday School. Graduating in 1965, he applied to West Point Military Academy, but didn't have the right political connections. So, he applied and was accepted to North Georgia College, where he majored in Chemistry with a minor in Biology. There, he also played football, baseball and sang in the Glee Club. Between high school and college, Kelley took a job selling Bibles to rural eastern North Carolina. His parents co-signed a loan for him for $1050 so he could buy a car. After a 14 week selling excursion, he returned home to pay back the loan having earned $7,270.70 in sales. He paid his way through college and later medical school taking out a 3 percent scholarship loan. He said medical school wasn't as expensive then as it is now. John Kelley's decision to study medicine came after he received his Bachelor's Degree from NGC. He had considered a business career and also thought about going into the ministry. He said the influencing factor that steered him to medicine was the time he spent with his grandmother Lydia Corn after she suffered a stroke. One of his daughters was named after his grandmother Corn. "Granddaddy (Charley Corn) said Momma is staying at home. We're going to take care of her right here," Kelley told me. "He was old-fashioned about some of his thinking. He believed in home remedies. I came back from college on week-ends and helped take care of her during the eight weeks before she died. The time I was figuring out what I wanted to do, I was thinking about Momma Corn's suffering," Kelley said. Post graduate training led to medical school at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta followed by a cardiology fellowship at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Dr. Kelley was a founding member of the Georgia Heart Institute in Augusta and pioneered the development of the Cardiac Rehabilitation program as well as the angioplasty and coronary stent program at University Hospital in Augusta where he practiced for 28 years. Currently, he serves as the Medical Director for the North Georgia Mountain division of the Atlanta Cardiology Group and Piedmont Heart Institute.
Next week--Dr. John Kelley-- Cardiologist
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