Mr. Joe Boyd Ezell Jr.

As a boy, he was known as “Sonny.” Joe was born in Talladega, Alabama on January 2, 1925, son of Ella McCall Ezell and Joe Boyd Ezell. He grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, going to Central Park Elementary School, and graduated from Phillips High School, where he was class Valedictorian. Upon graduation in 1943, he was immediately inducted into the Army at Fort Hood, Texas. He served in Europe and saw combat in eastern France, where he earned a Campaign Medal with one Bronze Star. On return from WWII, he attended Birmingham Southern College, where he met Daphna Wilda Barnes, the future Mrs. Joe Ezell. He and Daphna moved on to Tuscaloosa, Alabama where he earned a Masters Degree in History, specializing in Tudor England. He married Daphna in 1949, and their son David was born in 1956, followed by his daughter Joanna in 1958. After serving as the University Center Director in Gadsden Alabama and also for a time at the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, he began working at Georgia State University in 1963. As part of the administration at Georgia State, he played a key role in helping the institution grow from a night school with some 3000 students to a major urban university with some 25,000 students featuring a law school and a ground-breaking College of Urban Life. Joe also founded the Self Study effort at Georgia State, a pioneering and successful attempt to institutionalize self-improvement into the lifeblood of the University. Joe is survived by his wife Daphna, his daughter Joanna her husband Jim Pope, with their children Alan, Ryan with his wife Chaney their daughter Reagan, daughter Chelsea and Jordan, as well as his son David and David’s partner David Fitzgerald. Joe’s two cousins, William Stockdale of Victoria, Canada and Sara Elizabeth Craft of Birmingham, Alabama, now represent the last surviving members of their generation. Services will be at Northside Chapel in Roswell at 3:00PM on Friday afternoon, July 24, 2015, with visitation starting at 2:00PM. In lieu of flowers, the family recommends that donations be made to the Ezell History Endowment at the Georgia State University Library.

Mr. Joe Boyd Ezell Jr.

January 2, 1925 - July 20, 2015