ShinglerDiversified's History
</html> In 1966 Sinclair Shingler, III came back to his birthplace of Seminole and Miller Counties, Georgia. He had completed his formal education at Mercer University and Walter F. George School of Law, graduating in 1963. From 1963 to 1965, he served in the United States Army, making the rank of First Lieutenant in eleven months. The only action he saw was in Chad's Rose Room in Phoenix City, Alabama. However, he could have made Captain if he had taken duty in Vietnam, but an invitation was not extended and he moved to Atlanta, Georgia. There he studied in Emory University and later took a job as a law clerk with the law firm, Hodges and Oliver.
In Donalsonville, Sinclair opened an office with Earl Gibbons, and worked for Drake and Bridges Realty. He started a tax business, picking up where his grandfather, F. S. Shingler, Sr., left off and continued with the real estate business. Mr. Olin Cofty of Miller County talked him into getting some portable buildings. The tax business nearly doubled every year, and soon Shingler got a license with the Internal Revenue Service. His first office was on U. S. Highway 84 near the present day Hardee's and Mr. Pibbs. Wilson Gibson suggested the name Shingler Diversified, and it stuck.
While at the Highway 84 location, an extremely beautiful and charming young lady visited him on banking business. A courtship followed and a little more than one month afterward, Sinclair and Evelyn Bean were married. Mr. Charles Bridges said he would pay for the honeymoon suite and Sinclair selected The Grand Hotel at Mobile, Alabama. Before the first full year of the marriage, they had a daughter, Rebecca Elaine Shingler, named after her two Great Aunts from Moultrie, Georgia.
In the 1970's, Sinclair became a member of the Donalsonville Lions Club and by 1981 he was District Governor. Due to a shortage of qualified candidates, Shingler became "Man of the Year" in Seminole County in 1981. During this same time, he started the article in the Donalsonville News called "Travels of the Governor." Thanks to the appreciated support and encouragement of Waldo "Bo" McLeod, Shingler has continued with the article for nearly twenty years.
He is in the process of writing a book, "Dupont, the Governor and Possum People", which will be published in the next few years after a thorough edit and revision. This book deals with the Willingham and Cunningham families over a period of one-hundred fifty years, in Eastern and Southwestern Georgia. The main setting for the book is on the Suwannee River near Fargo, Georgia.
Sinclair's family has been blessed over the years. Rebecca, his daughter, finished at Georgia and Augusta Medical School, and was employed by the medical clinic at the university. She is now a housewife with two children and is married to Enrique Alpaugh, who has a very successful heating and cooling business called Subzero.
Main features of Shingler Diversified are: Certified General Real Estate Appraiser, GA Number 59; Internal Revenue Service Enrolled Agent, 07513; Lark aluminum buildings, carports, sheds, and patio covers; Honeybee farming; Gourd farming.
Sinclair once had five hundred bee colonies used for pollination, but now the number is down to thirty colonies. For a number of years, he has raised gourds for Purple Martin homes and for artists who use gourds in craft shows. He usually has two to three thousand gourds on hand.