Reginald James “Reg” Barlament

Reginald James “Reg” Barlament died on February 28, 2023, at his home in Dahlonega, Georgia. He was 88 years old.

Reg was born on August 29, 1934, at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Reg was the firstborn of the three children of Norval Sylvester “Butch” Barlament and Lillian Maricque Barlament. He attended SS. Peter and Paul School and Central Catholic High School in Green Bay. He graduated from high school in 1952.

He received numerous awards for playing football on the elementary and high school levels, and he continued that sport at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. He played offensive and defensive lineman and was a letterman all four years of high school and college. He was a member of the 1952 undefeated Green Knights football team, inducted into the St. Norbert Athletic Hall of Fame. He also was a member of the St. Norbert golf team – a sport which he loved and at which he excelled for decades.

The first in his family to attend college, Reg joined the Army ROTC at St. Norbert. He graduated from St. Norbert in 1956, with a major in English.

He was commissioned into the Army Infantry from Senior ROTC at St. Norbert on June 6, 1956. His active duty service started in 1957 with training at Fort Benning, Georgia. During his Army career, Reg served around the world during several major events. He was in Germany in 1961-62 when the Berlin Wall was built; he was an advisor in Vietnam in 1962-63, where he received the Bronze Star; he served in the Panama Canal Zone in 1966 and in Korea's DMZ in 1967-68.

In 1968, Reg accepted an assignment to a very different place: He became an ROTC instructor at Sewanee Military Academy (SMA) in Sewanee, Tennessee. In this idyllic setting on the Cumberland Plateau, Reg’s Army bachelor life took a dramatic turn. It was there he met the love of his life, Ellen Donnell, an SMA French teacher who hailed from Lebanon, Tennessee.

Reg and Ellen married on August 8, 1970, at Ellen’s parents’ home in Lebanon. They were married for 52 years. They loved each other very much, bridging any cultural gaps that might have existed between a “Yankee” Catholic with an unusual name and an adventurous Southerner from the “non-instrumental” Church of Christ.

Reg left active duty military service in 1973, and became an Army reservist as well as a civilian employee of the Army. Together, Reg and Ellen lived in Tennessee, Illinois, Michigan, and Germany, before they settled in Hinesville, Georgia, in 1982, where Reg worked at Fort Stewart. They had three children: Laura, Jennifer, and James. The five made a tight family unit that Reg cherished, protected, and amused in turn. Wherever they lived, Reg did his work with meticulous care and devoted the remainder of his time to his family, along with some golfing and church involvement.

Reg loved to read maps and plan trips. As a result, the family traveled throughout Europe (during their four years as a family in Germany) and in the United States regionally and beyond. He gave up smoking and became a runner in the late 1970s, one of the many positive activities he passed along to his children. Reg led the family in having fun with biking, walking, hiking, swimming, and golfing. “Do something, even if it’s wrong” was one of his favorite catchphrases. It was in the family that his wacky sense of humor also found free rein, a treasure masked by his publicly reticent nature.

Reg retired from the Army with the rank of colonel in 1994, and from the civil service in 1995. He and Ellen loved the Southern Appalachians, where the family had vacationed many times. In 2000, they moved to the Georgia mountain town of Dahlonega, where they purchased property and built their retirement home. Reg was a member of St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church. He and Ellen became steady volunteers for the Lumpkin County Senior Center’s Meals on Wheels program and for the Lumpkin County Public Library.

Reg is survived by his wife, Ellen; daughter Laura Barlament of Decorah, Iowa; daughter Jennifer Barlament (Ken Potsic) of Atlanta; son James Barlament (Chrissy Proctor) of Athens, Georgia; grandchildren David Potsic and Penny Barlament; brother Ron Barlament of The Villages, Florida.

A memorial service will be held on Monday, March 6, at 11 a.m. at Anderson-Underwood Funeral Home in Dahlonega. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to the Lumpkin County Public Library and the Lumpkin County Senior Center Meals on Wheels.

To share a memory or a condolence with the family, visit Reg's online guestbook at andersonunderwood.com.