BLACKSHEAR — During a campaign stop in Pierce County at Stewart Distributing, Rick Jackson, Republican candidate for governor of Georgia, recounted his difficult upbringing. He outlined his path from foster care to building a multi-billion- dollar healthcare company, and detailed plans focused on taxes, education, rural healthcare, public safety and economic development. Jackson, who has never held elective office, told those in attendance he is running to apply his business experience to help the state’s most vulnerable residents and to represent all 11 million Georgians. “I don’t believe God sent Jesus here to save Republicans or Democrats … He came here to save everybody,” said Jackson. He described a childhood marked by instability. His father left when he was nine months old. His mother, a waitress with a sixth-grade education who who struggled with alcohol, remarried multiple times. Jackson said he had seven stepfathers and attended seven elementary schools by age 12. The family lived in public housing. He credited a bus ministry from First Baptist Church of Atlanta with exposing him to more stable families and Christian faith. He was baptized twice as a child for assurance. Around age 12, after a family crisis, an uncle took him to enter the foster care system. In his first foster home, Jackson witnessed a family pray together at dinner — an experience he said showed him “what normal is” and what he wanted for his own life. Jackson later lived at a Methodist…
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