J. B. Fuqua died.

[MGKrebs]

In case you didn't see this the other day, Democrats lost a good friend.

Gwinnett developer Wayne Mason had gotten to know Fuqua through Democratic political circles. "He was a great guy," Mason said. "Plus he was a great Democrat, and there aren't many of us left." Builder Michael Russell said of Fuqua: "His name is synonymous with generosity in this city. Fortunately I think Rex will continue to be a major force in this community."

"J.B. was a very good friend of mine and I will miss him," media mogul Ted Turner said through a spokesman. "This is a great personal loss to us all."

One of Fuqua's closest friends was Tom Johnson, the retired chairman of the CNN News Group. "He was my friend since I was a student at the University of Georgia," Johnson said. "J.B. Fuqua was a man who not only achieved and lived the American dream, but to his everlasting glory, he shared it." Johnson and Fuqua also shared a common illness — depression. Fuqua described his experiences with depression in his autobiography. Johnson provided the forward disclosing his own struggles.

Both men agreed to talk about their own experiences after Atlanta businessman Larry Gellerstedt III publicly disclosed how he had battled the disease. Gellerstedt said that having Fuqua go public — given his generation, his stature in the business community and his contributions — helped change people's attitudes on how depression is viewed. "It took a lot of vision, and it took a lot of courage," Gellerstedt said. "There's one paragraph in his book about depression that brought me to tears because it is the most personal description of what it feels like that I've read."

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/business/stories/0407bizfuquaside.html