It’s easier for Warren Taylor to tell you the major countries he hasn’t visited than to list the ones he has.

Quick to smile and gracious, he’s happy to chat about whatever you like, but to tell all he did before becoming the head of shipping and receiving at Sunbelt Ag Expo would require far more words than we can squeeze into this article. The Sunbelt Ag Expo will take place Oct. 16-18.

For now, just know there are only two countries he wanted to visit but never did. But we’ll get back to that.

Taylor, 74, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, was born and raised at Moultrie, Ga., but the town could only keep him grounded through high school. After that, he was off to see the world — and often off the ground.

Let’s divide Taylor’s life and career into thirds, with each third representing maybe 25 years or so. Hold on to your hat.

EARLY YEARS

After high school in Colquitt County, he went to Georgia Military College, and following graduation there, he attended the University of Georgia where he earned a degree in chemistry and was in the Reserve Officer Training Corps. During this period, he also earned a private pilot’s license through an Army program that trained pilots to go to Vietnam. Later, while serving in Germany, he earned a master’s degree in counselling from Boston University.

During his college years, he married his high school sweetheart, Gidge, and they’ve been married 53 years. They have two adult sons, who have good careers of their own, and one grandchild, Breanna.

MILITARY YEARS

In the late 1960s, Taylor received his Army commission and went to armory school and flight school for a year, after which he did a one year tour in Vietnam as a fixed-wing reconnaissance pilot. He arrived in country soon after the Tet Offensive and flew missions in the Demilitarized Zone. He saw a lot in one year.

Taylor remained in the Army, transitioning his piloting skills to helicopters and gunships. Over the course of the next 20 years, he went through Army Airborne and Ranger school, was a company commander in an armored battalion in Germany, was chief of Army flight testing at the Plant Representative Office (ARPRO) at Bell Helicopters, most notably piloting the Cobra helicopter gunship, served on the Army staff in Washington as an action officer working with the Pentagon and as an Army Congressional liaison escort officer for congressional delegations when they officially travelled overseas, handling planning, travel, and in-country logistics.

Those are just the broad strokes of his Army years.

RETIRED…AND COUNTING YEARS

Taylor retired from the Army in 1991, and because of his mother’s failing health, he moved back to Moultrie. The Taylors became active in the community, and in 1994 he got on the radar of then Expo Director Ed White. The two men clicked, and White asked Taylor to head up the show’s shipping and receiving division.

So, what is shipping and receiving like at Expo? It’s a lot. In September, things start revving up as shipments for the October show begin to arrive. Taylor and a small crew go to work receiving the incoming goods and warehousing them in an old hangar on the Expo grounds.

“It can be anything from promotional items, brochures and publications, to smaller equipment and complete booth displays,” says Wendell Brown, exhibitor coordinator for Expo. “Some of the equipment may be things like high-tech spray prototypes for demonstrations that are very expensive. So, extra care and handling are required.”

About 90,000 pounds of that stuff runs through Receiving annually at Expo. After the show, about 60,000 pounds of it is shipped back out.

“I am often told by exhibitors and people who come here each year — those who work and go to many shows and farm shows throughout the year — that Expo is one of the best-run shows in the country. And I agree. It is a well-oiled machine, and I always will be proud to be a part of it," Taylor said.

“For more than 20 years, Warren Taylor has managed the Expo Shipping and Receiving hangar with the utmost integrity. He can always be counted on to report for work toward the end of September and stay until the last parcel is shipped out, usually the weekend after the show is over. Our exhibitors like dealing with Warren; he is a true professional, and he treats every exhibitor and their freight with care, no matter if it’s a single letter or a truckload of equipment,” said Chip Blalock, Expo executive director.

Since retiring from the military, Taylor has also served on the Colquitt County Foster Care Review Board, the county’s zoning and planning board, the county’s art center board, as president of the Moultrie Rotary Club, and as chairman of the board of deacons at Trinity Baptist Church.

Due to failing eyesight, he gave up flying many years ago, but says it wasn’t that big a deal to stop. Today, he is comfortable hanging out in Moultrie and south Georgia. He says his wife would like to get him back on a plane to for traveling, because she didn’t get to see all that he did during his career in the Army. Maybe he’ll go, he says. But, hey, most of his military career was spent piloting aircraft or riding in them across the globe. Over time, he says, the flying bug was gradually flushed from his system, along with the itch to travel.

This year’s Expo may be Taylor’s last as head of shipping and handling. He plans to hand over his duties, and is training someone now to take over, but he’ll still be around, as needed — now and forever a part of the show’s extended family.

Oh, and those two countries Taylor wanted to visit but never got to see during his military career: China and Israel. Fate, or duty, going there just never quite worked out. But he did once escort a congressional delegation to Jordan, including a meeting with King Hussein, the country’s ruler at the time. From a vantage point in Jordan, Taylor across the border into Israel.

Warren Taylor has stories.