About Us

Bill and Deanie Fincher, owners of Plum Nelly RV Park, met in Ellijay in 1975 when Bill was assigned as a Probation/Parole officer to the Appalachian Judicial Circuit. Deanie was a new schoolteacher at Gilmer HS her first year and then taught at Oakland Elementary her next year.  Bill and Deanie married in 1978 and moved to Canton, GA.

Bill went to law school, later joined the FBI for several years, before coming back to Georgia to work in private law practice, as an Assistant District Attorney in the Atlanta Judicial Circuit and later completed his law career as an Assistant District Attorney in the Appalachian Judicial Circuit.  Deanie taught school for 36 years in both Forsyth County and Cherokee County before retiring. After retirement she was an adjunct professor in the MAT Program at Reinhardt University before she went back to work as a trainer for the Georgia Dept of Education.

The Fincher’s son, Jacob, grew up camping with his family, at Camp Glisson and with Scout Troop 241 while he achieved his Eagle Scout rank.

Bill and Deanie are both retired now except for their work at the campground, volunteering at their church and in their community, as well as traveling to places on their bucket list.

Simply put if you were to ask them, they would say, “It’s Been a Wonderful Life”! They met in High School in Ventura, California, and became High School sweethearts, marrying during their second year of college. They have now been married for 58 years with many challenges, memories, and the blessings of 4 wonderful children, 12 Grandchildren, and 5 Great Grands… so far!

Rich spent his career as an executive in the Auto Industry working for Chrysler Corporation, Nissan/Datsun, Mitsubishi, and Daewoo. Corporate Life meant a lot of moves as they have lived in Southern California, Denver, Phoenix, Boston, Minneapolis, Wisconsin, Jacksonville, Florida, and Orlando. After early retirement from Nissan Rich worked as the General Manager of the world’s largest Hummer Store in Marietta, Ga., and then as G.M. of Roswell Infiniti, also in Atlanta. He ended his auto career with 12 years as an Independent Consultant for GM, Chrysler, VW, Subaru and Mazda teaching Customer Satisfaction, Owner Loyalty, and Written Process Improvement! His final Auto Gig was a 13-city speaking tour for J.D. Power trying to teach Chrysler dealers and G.M.’s “How to Be Nice”! LOL

Marsha was always a busy homemaker, Mom, and Nana, but also worked during the early years of their marriage as a Legal Secretary, and Medical Transcriptionist! She attended the Los Angeles School for Court Reporter and can take dictation at 200 wpm! (BTW: Don’t try to beat her at Scrabble! She really knows how to spell a lot of weird medical terms!)

It must be mentioned that world travel was also a part of their fun lifestyle. Rich served in the Army during the Vietnam War as a Military Policeman in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and was lucky to have Marsha with him for 2 years. While in Germany they had the chance to travel throughout Europe. Then in the auto business, traveled to many wonderful spots including Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, Mexico, and Hawaii on several occasions.

Once, as Rich hit the 70-year-old mark, enough was enough and the auto career ended, by then they had been settled on Lake Lanier in the North Atlanta area. They were blessed to live on the Lake for 30+ years, but as the kids and grandkids got busy in their own lives it became apparent that their visits to the Lake become less frequent and Rich n’ Marsha decided to sell the Lake Home and live Full-Time in their Motorhome.

Rich “tried retirement” and got bored after just 6 months, so it was off to yet another “career” as Camp Hosts. About every 6 months, they would move to a different spot to serve in campgrounds and RV resorts… actually, following the Sun! They have worked in Fresno, Ca., Lake Lanier in Ga., several RV Resorts in Florida, Brannen Island State Park in California, Lake of the Woods in Oregon, Lake Allatoona in Georgia and for the city of Acworth in Georgia. All FUN spots working with amazing Work Camper Teams and learning a lot about how best to serve the needs of our Guests!

Now it’s on to Plum Nelly RV Park to share what they have learned and to help to make everyone’s stay in the Park a Wonderful Memory! We welcome them to the Plum Nelly Team and hope they choose to stay with us for a long, long time! In closing, it’s important to note that they are Christians and active Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. So, you might not see them busy in the Park on a Sunday!

                      Where Did The Name “Plum Nelly” Come From?

In the early 90’s, Bill came home one night and asked Deanie if she would rather own a chicken farm or a campground? Bill had just made an offer on a chicken farm in Forsyth Co.  Deanie said “CAMPGROUND”. So off Bill went to find some property to build a campground.

When Bill began building the campground, he and Deanie kept bouncing names off each other.  Most didn’t work for either of them.  Bill remembered a saying his mother used to use when they were on trips and one of the three boys would ask “Are we there Yet?” Bill’s mother would reply, “We’re plum nearly there” or in the old South accent it would be “Plum Nelly” there.  It’s a gimmick and it was easy to remember. 

You’re PLUM out of Atlanta and NELLY into the mountains!