By Meghan Durbak / contributing writer
MERIDIAN — As Theola Grayson waited on her customers Friday, she kept glancing at the empty chair in the blue room of Jean’s Restaurant.
Catching herself, she would turn and greet the familiar faces of the regulars who come flocking to Jean’s, just around noontime. Most of them were there. They were the same people she’d seen since she began working at the restaurant almost 10 years ago.
Pen in hand, she started up a conversation with Dot Moore and the restaurant’s owner, Jean Bullock. Ron Haygood passed them on his way out and stopped to chat for a moment. Very quickly the conversation turned to the empty chair. In fact, most of the lunch crowd cast glances toward it.
“He always enjoyed coming here because he got to see everybody,” Bullock said.
“He” was G.V. “Sonny” Montgomery, former U.S. representative and one of the most beloved citizens of Meridian.
“He sat there so he could see everybody who came in,” Grayson said of the empty chair that faced the entrance.
That’s where Montgomery sat for almost 31 years — since the restaurant opened. He chatted with fellow Meridianites and ate fried chicken, which was his favorite, Bullock said.
In fact, Montgomery rarely passed on a chance to eat breakfast or lunch at Jean’s. And almost everyone at Jean’s knew him.
“He was an icon,” Charlotte Tabereaux said.
Tabereaux had just moved to Meridian, about two years ago, when she met Montgomery. There were still a few tears in her eyes Friday, as she had just been discussing Montgomery’s death with colleague Heather Goodwin.
While Goodwin never personally met Montgomery, she grew up knowing that he cared about her.
“He loved the people of Meridian. He loved the veterans; he loved the children,” she said.
“He was a man of the people,” Scott Stone agreed.
But it wasn’t just his attitude toward the people of Meridian that struck Stone when he would speak with Montgomery.
“He was a humble man to have reached such a high position in government,” said Stone, a Jean’s regular.
Another regular, Dot Moore, had stories to tell about Montgomery.
“My husband was a disabled veteran, and we needed the house built for wheelchair patients. If it wasn’t for Sonny, I never would’ve gotten it,” Moore said.
Stories like Moore’s could be heard all over Jean’s on Friday.
Leland Hughes recalled a time when he borrowed $10 from Montgomery. When Hughes went to pay him back, “Sonny wouldn’t take it,” he said.
Paul Ott remembered a different side of Montgomery. Ott, an entertainer and radio personality who sings a lot of patriotic songs, was good friends with Montgomery.
Even as an 80-year-old, Montgomery was still a pretty good tennis player. Whenever Ott asked for a match, Montgomery would laugh and say, “I can beat you; I need a partner I can’t beat.”
Champ Gibson went even farther back with Montgomery. Gibson was one of more than 20 men who met Montgomery for coffee every Friday morning at Jean’s. Gibson said the “Coffee Club” talked politics and anything else that crossed their minds.
Long before the Coffee Club began meeting at Jean’s, Gibson and Montgomery were friends. “I’ve known Sonny since I was eight, and I’d play rubber guns with Sonny when we were kids,” Gibson said.
“He was a mighty swell fella.”
As Grayson went back to work, she looked at Montgomery’s empty chair and said: “I used to run up to him and hug his neck. He was always so kind to me.”
The waitresses at Jean’s will miss Sonny. Lifelong friend Jean will miss Sonny. Her customers will miss Sonny. Maybe that’s because, as customer Charles Norman said, “Guess everybody was friends with Sonny.”
