Barry Wilkes, Clerk of Courts, Liberty County, Georgia, Biographical Information

F. Barry Wilkes, Clerk and Court Administrator for the Superior Court, State Court, Juvenile Court, and Magistrate Court of Liberty County, Georgia, is a graduate of Georgia Southern University, where he earned a B.A. degree in sociology and anthropology. His post-graduate studies were in education. He was administrator of the six-county Atlantic Judicial Circuit of Georgia public defender program before being elected clerk of superior court in 1984. From 1975 through 1979, he taught at a high school in Southeast Georgia.

He is a past-president of the County Officers' Association of Georgia, of which the membership consists of the sheriffs, probate judges, clerks of superior court, and tax commissioners of the 159 counties of Georgia. He served as president of the Council of Superior Court Clerks of Georgia for five years (1990-1995), was inaugural executive director of the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority (GSCCCA) and served as interim executive director of the authority in 1990 and 1991. GSCCCA is the state agency that operates the statewide automated Uniform Commercial Code (financing statement) and real estate information systems.

Wilkes was elected to the Board of Directors of GSCCCA in November 2000 by the Council of Superior Court Clerks of Georgia and took office on January 1, 2001. He was elected vice-chairman of the Georgia Superior Court Clerk's Cooperative Authority in January, 2001 and was re-elected in January 1, 2005. He is past president of the Georgia Superior Court Clerks' Association, having served as president from 2003-2005.

Wilkes was awarded the County Officer of the Year of Georgia Award by the County Officers' Association of Georgia in November, 1999. The prestigious award is presented annually by the association to one of its 636 members, representing the 159 counties of Georgia, for "his or her outstanding contributions to the association, the people they serve at home, and the citizens of Georgia." In 1993, he was the recipient of the prestigious Superior Court Clerk of the Year Award for the State of Georgia. Presented by the Superior Court Clerks' Association of Georgia, the award may be bestowed upon a clerk of superior court only once in his or her lifetime.

Wilkes served on the Board of Directors of the National Association for Court Management (NACM) from 1995-1997. In 1992 he was appointed to the Georgia Mapping and Land Records Modernization Advisory Board by then Gov. Joe Frank Harris, serving six years as a member of the board. He served for five years on the state's Court Futures Vanguard, a commission charged with visioning for the courts of Georgia. He was appointed to the Supreme Court of Georgia's Committee on Technology in 2004.

He has been chairman of the Liberty County Records Advisory Board--which operates the county's off-site, centralized governmental records repository--since 1998, and as chairperson of the Liberty County Information Technology Board, the local governmental agency responsible for establishment, maintenance, and regulation of the local county-wide governmental wide-area-network since 2000. He has served on numerous other court management and judicially appointed boards and committees. He is a member of the joint American Judicature Society/Justice Management Institute Pro Se Litigation Task Force, serves on various local and state boards and is very active in community-based civic, church, and charitable organizations.

Wilkes regularly teaches courses to superior court clerks, attorneys, bankers, title abstracters, and other professionals. Subjects he has taught include Georgia's Uniform Commercial Code, governmental accounting, intangible recording tax and real estate transfer tax laws, clerical procedures, jury management, record management, record retention, establishing an off-site storage facility, office administration, handling difficult persons, Internet web site development, and numerous other subjects pertaining to superior court clerks' offices. He is the founder of the Superior Court Clerks' Association of Georgia's ÉCLAT, which is presented annually to a clerk (or clerks) of superior court for exceptional commitment, leadership, accomplishment and teamwork.

He is chairman of the Mary Lou Fraser Community Support Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting families; is a charter member and past-president (1998-1999) of the Liberty County-Armed Services YMCA, in Hinesville, and is currently serves as a member of the organization's board of directors; is a member of Hinesville Lodge Number 271 F&AM, the City of Hinesville's Service Delivery Committee, and numerous other civic and social organizations; and is an elder and the past clerk of the Session of Flemington Presbyterian Church in Flemington, Georgia, where he also served formerly as editor of the monthly newsletter, as president of the Men of Church and as a lay pastor. He is a published poet and author and an accomplished self-taught amateur photographer, painter, woodworker and sculptor.

Select from the following to obtain more information about the courts that F. Barry Wilkes serves:
Juvenile Court Magistrate Court State Court Superior Court