MOULTRIE — Murray Poole helped start the Glynn County Sports Hall of Fame in 2012 and and was its vice president for four years.

And, after more than a half-century of covering sports in Glynn County and around Georgia, Poole will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at its annual induction ceremony on Thursday.

There haven’t been many who have recorded the feats of the state’s athletes longer than Poole, a 1960 Moultrie High graduate, who earned his degree at Georgia and began working for Brunswick News in 1965.

He worked for the News before retiring after 40 years and has continued to write for Bulldawg Illustrated, covering the football exploits of his alma mater.

“I am humbled and honored,” Poole said this week of his induction into the Hall of Fame in the community he has called home for 51 years.

Covering sports enabled him to see something different every time he picked up a pencil and a reporter’s notebook.

And it gave him a lifetime of memories.

“The connections with athletes and coaches and their families have meant a lot to me,” he said.

He has covered the Risley High state basketball championship in 1969; Glynn Academy’s state baseball title in 1973; the first-round drafting of Terrors basketball player Kwame Brown by the Washington Wizards and Glynn Academy pitcher Adam Wainwright by the Atlanta Braves; the Masters in Augusta; and the World Series and Super Bowl by the state’s top professional teams.

 And he is not finished.

Poole, now 73, said he would like to go a few more years. He especially would like to cover Georgia football team’s game against Notre Dame in South Bend in 2017.

One of his career highlights was the last game between the Bulldogs and the Fighting Irish.

Yes, he was in the press box in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans when the Hershel Walker-led Bulldogs defeated Notre Dame on Jan. 1, 1981, 17-10 to win Georgia’s only national championship.

He hasn’t missed many Georgia football games over the years and has attended every Georgia-Florida game since 1962.

Poole’s infatuation with sports began when, as a youngster, he helped his father, who was the announcer at Moultrie’s Georgia-Florida League games.

And he and brothers Randy and Larry grew up playing one game or another in their Southwest Moultrie neighborhood.

Although he didn’t play sports at Moultrie High, he remembers the outstanding Packers football teams, especially the 1959 edition that included Don Porterfield, Mac Faircloth, Dewey Cobb, Billy Chesnutt and others.

He can still relate many of the particulars of that team’s 40-21 victory over Valdosta that season.

Before heading north to Athens, he played two seasons of baseball at Norman College.

And he nearly went to Georgia Tech, before deciding writing was what he wanted to do and Georgia was the place to prepare for a career in journalism.

While working for the Red and Black, he wrote a story on the first game at the new Georgia Coliseum in 1964.

After graduating from Georgia and doing a stint in the Army reserves, he took a job at The Brunswick News in 1965.

He became the sports editor the next year and began his long and successful career as one of the state’s top writers.

He has interviewed Walker, Vince Dooley, Dale Murphy, Jack Nicklaus, Steve Spurrier, Larry Munson and others during his career.

He also had the opportunity to meet and do a story on his boyhood idol, Mickey Mantle, whom he met at Sea Palms.

Poole has covered many a mile over the years and remembers many times leaving his office at 2 a.m. after a long Friday night covering high school football only to get up at 5 a.m. to drive to Athens to cover the Bulldogs.

“Looking back, sometimes I wonder how I did it,” he says.

He was given a lifetime pass to sporting events in Glynn County when he retired 10 years ago from The Brunswick News and also was honored by the Georgia Sports Writers Association.

He has won some 54 writing and editing awards during his long career.

Poole met his wife Barbara in Brunswick and raised their two sons there.

Another of his career highlights was the opportunity to cover his younger son Chris, who was an outstanding left-handed pitcher for Brunswick High.

Murray and Barbara also have four grandchildren now.

Poole received a call one year from a representative of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, wanting to talk to him about a job opening.

He never seriously considered it, he says.

“I’ve never regretted staying here,” he says.

The induction banquet is scheduled for  7 p.m. Thursday at the Jekyll Island Convention Center.

Also included in the 2016 class are Kevin Drury, a former Glynn Academy and professional baseball; Gary Larkins, former Frederica Academy and Glynn Academy soccer coach; Reshard Lee, former Brunswick High and National Football League player; and C.M. Page, former Glynn Academy football coach and Glynn County schools athletic director.