Rooks digs G
eorgia Gwinnett College alumnus, former Marine and budding archaeologist Jim Rooks doesn’t have to think back very far to understand his passion for history.
His father, Terry Rooks, a former military man and leather smith, is a history buff who has shared that interest with his son. Through the years, Rooks’ father gave him historically inspired knife sheaths and colonial shot bags he had made, as well as a tomahawk and Brown Bess British musket he purchased. Rooks was only seven or eight when his father brought the Civil War to life for him with a visit to Kennesaw Mountain battlefield. “I absolutely fell in love with it,” Rooks said. “That’s when, as historians say, I caught the bug.” Rooks graduated from North Gwinnett High School in Suwanee in 2001. He immediately entered the Marine Corps and spent more than five years on active duty, seeing combat in Africa and Iraq as an infantry sergeant. By the time Rooks was ready to return to civilian life, the economy had taken a down turn. He found the jobs that were available required a college degree, so at age 29, he enrolled at GGC, a convenient 15 minutes from his Suwanee home. At GGC, Rooks met his soon-to-be wife, Morgan O’Kelley Rooks. The couple left Georgia Gwinnett in 2012 so Rooks could accept a job offer in South Carolina. However, the job didn’t pan out, and almost one year later, Rooks and his wife returned to Georgia and he was back at GGC. The couple married in 2014, and she left school for a job opportunity. He continued school and graduated in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in history.
Top left: One of the ways Jim Rooks’ father, Terry, nurtured his son’s interests in history was to create historically inspired metal and leather items for him. Shown is a leather sheath Terry Rooks created for the trowel his son uses for excavations. It is adorned with an embossed Native American Clovis point. Bottom left: Jim Rooks (right) and two colleagues stand over a section of excavated soil at the Singer-Moye archaeological site in Stewart County, Ga. Rooks spent a month at the site last summer through the Georgia Archeaology Field School. Right: Jim Rooks
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