Zell Bryan Miller (February 24, 1932 – March 23, 2018) was an American author and politician from the state of Georgia. A member of the Democratic Party, Miller served as lieutenant governor from 1975 to 1991, 79th governor of Georgia from 1991 to 1999, and as U.S. senator from 2000 to 2005. Miller was a conservative Democrat as a senator in the 2000s, after being more liberal as governor in the 1990s. In 2004, he supported Republican president George W. Bush against Democratic nominee John Kerry in the presidential election. Miller was a keynote speaker at both major American political parties' national conventions–Democratic in 1992 and Republican in 2004. He did not seek re-election to the Senate in 2004. After retiring from the Senate, he joined the law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge as a non-lawyer professional in the firm's national government affairs practice. Miller was also a Fox News contributor. After he left his office in 2005, no Georgia Democrats were elected to the United States Senate for 16 years until Raphael Warnock won Miller's former seat in the 2020–21 special runoff election and Jon Ossoff won the Class 2 seat in the 2020–21 regular runoff election. Early life and military career Miller was born in the small mountain town of Young Harris, Georgia. His father, Stephen Grady Miller (1891–1932), was a teacher who died of cerebral meningitis when Miller was a 17-day-old infant, and the future politician was raised by his widowed mother, Birdie Bryan (1893–1980). He had a sister, Jane, who was six years older than he. As a child, Miller lived both in Young Harris and Atlanta. Miller received an associate degree from Young Harris College in his home town and later attended Emory University. Less than a month after the Korean War armistice, Miller wound up in a drunk tank in the mountains of North Georgia. Miller stated later that this incident was the lowest point of his life. Upon his release, Miller enlisted in the Marines. During his three years in the United States Marine Corps, Miller attained the rank of sergeant. He often referred to the value of his experience in the Marine Corps in his writing and stump speeches. In his book on the subject, entitled Corps Values: Everything You Need to Know I Learned in the Marines, he wrote: After serving in the Marines, Miller enrolled in 1956 and earned bachelor's