THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES | COMMEMORATIVE SECTION | SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 2010

The Huntsville Times has made its home on South Memorial Parkway since 1956.

THE
TIMES
OF OUR
LIVES
The centennial edition
of The Huntsville Times

The Times was publishing from this Fast? Typically, the presses print eight
downtown building by World War I. copies of the paper per second.

The Times’ founder was a well- ‘ROOSEVELT IS DEAD’ was a

liked entrepreneur in 1910 headline soon after Eleanor
Huntsville ... and a wanted man Hutchens started working for
in Tennessee. PAGE 5 The old Times Building has been a Huntsville landmark since 1928. The Times. PAGE 7
H2 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010

THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES

» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES

The beginning: Icons and influence

WHEN HISTORY CALLED,

THE TIMES WAS THERE
By Mike Marshall
Times Staff Writer
mike.marshall@htimes.com
For 100 years, we’ve been there. We’ve been
there after days of steady rains put the town
under water, after a night of tornadoes
brought the town to a halt, after 10 inches of
snow knocked out much of the town’s elec-
tricity.
We’ve been there when a group of German
rocket scientists changed Huntsville forever
and when President Dwight Eisenhower
came to town to dedicate Marshall Space
Flight Center, the facility that helped change
the course of space exploration in America.
We’ve been there for Apollo and Gemini
launches, for the aftermath of a plane crash
on a two-lane Georgia highway, for the sor-
row of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church in Birmingham.
At The Huntsville Times, we’re 100 years
old now, celebrating the centennial anniver-
sary of our first publication, a six-page paper
printed in a tin-frame building on the cor-
ner of Holmes Avenue and Greene Street.
Like anyone turning 100, we’re ready to re-
flect on some of our proudest moments – mo-
ments that are some of the most important
in the history of North Alabama, the South
and, even, America.
On Sept. 6, 1963, when Gov. George Wal-
lace closed the public schools, Jim Hutsell,
then The Times’ editorial page editor, wrote
an editorial that proved sadly prescient.
Sensing the city’s anger over Wallace’s ac-
tions, Hustell wrote an editorial titled “Our
Newest Folly.’’
“The governor says he is acting in the in-
terest of peace and tranquility,’’ Hutsell
wrote. “He well knows that there has been no
threat of anything else here. Alabama’s gov-
ernor knows now, and long has known, that
there is no possibility of avoiding the orders
of the U.S. District Court to admit Negro chil-
dren in public schools.’’
Four students – Sonnie Hereford IV at Fifth
Avenue School, Veronica Pearson at Rison Ju-
nior High, David Piggee at Terry Heights El-
ementary and John Brewton at East Clinton
Elementary – were scheduled to integrate the
Huntsville City Schools.
Transportation union workers on strike at Huntsville Manufacturing Co. in 1951.
But state troopers ringed those schools that
day to reinforce the governor’s order.
“Apparently, (Wallace) places his own po-
litical ambitions above the welfare of the
schoolchildren he had pledged to aid,’’ Hut-
sell wrote. “This disgraceful spectacle is not
of Huntsville’s making, but Huntsville and Al-
abama will suffer from it. In time, it will pass,
but for many years it will haunt this city and
this state.
“All Huntsville should let the governor
know that this community bitterly resents this
senseless and shameful action of this day.’’
The editorial was published on a Friday.
Three days later, the following Monday, The
Times ran an eight-column headline across
the front page.
State Bars Negroes Elsewhere,
Huntsville Quietly Integrates
Huntsville-Madison County Public Library
Perfect penetration
At one time, the early 1950s, the newspa-
per was so influential that its circulation was
greater than the number of people in town.
In newspaper terminology, The Times had
“105 percent penetration,’’ in the words of Pat
McCauley, then a reporter for The Times and
later its longtime editor.
McCauley’s term – 105 percent penetration
– was a fancy way of saying some people in
town read the paper more than once a day,
likely buying the street edition at lunch and
scooping the home edition in the evenings off
their lawns or driveways.
“The newspaper,’’ McCauley said, “was quite
influential in the city, letting the town know
what was right with it and what was wrong
with it.’’
In McCauley’s first stint at the paper, 1949-
54, the reporters arrived at the office around
7 a.m.
The paper was located in The Times
Building on the corner of Greene and
Holmes, site of the paper’s original building.
By then, though, the newspaper was housed
on the second floor of The Times Building,
the largest building in town when it was con-
structed in the late 1920s.
It was a 12-story structure, slightly taller
than the Russel Erskine Hotel, farther west
on Clinton Avenue.
The newsroom was on the second floor.
Reese Amis, the paper’s legendary editor, oc-
cupied the corner office.
The reporters usually arrived around 7 a.m.,
as McCauley recalled. By 9 a.m, the reporters
were on the streets, walking their streets,
scouring their beats for news.
By lunchtime, the paper was on the streets,
and McCauley saw people sitting on barstools,
eating their lunch and digesting the news.
On election nights, McCauley recalled, re-
porters would “collect data all through the
evening.’’ Outside The Times Building, towns-
people gathered, awaiting the results.
Later in the night, McCauley said, a news-
paper employee went outside and announced
the results to the crowd.
McCauley left the newspaper in 1954 for
graduate school at Vanderbilt. He returned
12 years later as editor, finding a paper that
had virtually doubled in circulation.
By then, the paper had moved to its current
location at 2317 S. Memorial Parkway. The
paper was to undergo even greater growth, ris-
ing to the third-largest paper in Alabama by
the end of McCauley’s tenure in 1994.
Today, The Times has evolved into a vir-
tual 24-hour news-gathering service with the
advent of al.com, its Web site. With its on-
line and newspaper presence, The Times
reaches more than 75 percent of Madison
County, according to research.
In McCauley’s early days, the newspaper
was the “total instrument of information’’ in
the community, as he put it. Today, The Times
has far greater competition, but it remains
the largest local information-gathering or-
ganization, just as it’s always been.

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 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010 H3

THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES

» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES

The beginning: Icons and influence

Move
turns up
lots of lost
items
So much dust was cover-
ing so many long-forgotten
items that many Times em-
ployees found reminders of
the newspaper’s roots when
they moved out of their old
building on the corner of
Greene Street and Clinton
Avenue.
In a front page story on
Jan. 22, 1956, The Times de-
scribed how the move to the
new building at 2317 Memo-
rial Parkway – the newspa-
per’s current location – was
slowed by one discovery
after another.
“One local livestock owner
got back a picture of a prize
cow, evidently borrowed by
a reporter five or six years Eric Schultz/The Huntsville Times
ago,” The Times said. “Some- In 1955, the ground is prepped for the foundations of the “new” Times building on South Memorial Parkway, in the background. The building
one unearthed a 10th an- at left is P.R. Mallory, the only other building on that part of the Parkway at the time.
niversary of The Times and

NEW TIMES HOME

jokes became a little edged
when youngsters around the
office failed to recognize
some of the top brass from
younger days.
“Payrolls way back to 1932

were found and thrown away
but not before some of the
people who worked for The
Times many years ago –
and are now prominent in
other businesses – were re-
called.
“Old pay sheets of em-
ployees who drew $10 a
week were found. Others
with more responsibilities
got $18, the header of a de-
partment $18.50 and the
manager of advertising the
top salary of $22.50. Em-
ployees’ general reaction was
one of ‘no comment.’”
The pay sheets showed no
taxes or other deductions
from paychecks. There was
only one type of deduction in
the 1930s for newspaper
employees – for buttermilk,
butter and eggs.
“Seems one man came
around each week with eggs,
one with butter and one
with buttermilk,” the news-
paper said. “Employees had
no cash, so they bought the
milk, butter and eggs, had
the business manager pay for
them and deducted the
amount from their payroll
envelope.”
– Mike Marshall
FULFILLED A DREAM
By Mike Marshall
Times Staff Writer
mike.marshall@htimes.com
On the evening of Jan. 20, 1956,
a Friday, the 70 or so employees of
The Huntsville Times began their
long-awaited move to 2317 Memo-
rial Parkway, the newspaper’s cur-
rent location.
The construction of the new
building had been in the making for
15 years. The initial plans were pro-
posed in 1940 by Victor Hanson, the
publisher of The Birmingham
News, which owned The Times at
the time.
But World War II and the Kore-
an War delayed the plans. For the
next 14 years, The Times remained
in The Times Building on the cor-
ner of Greene Street and Holmes
Avenue in downtown Huntsville.
It was a cramped and sweaty
place. The newsroom was on the
second floor. The press room was
in the basement.
Tom Schrimsher, a longtime em-
ployee in printing and composing,
recalled a Saturday night when it
was “just us guys.”
Reese Amis, The Times’ leg-
endary editor, decided to pitch in on
a particularly grueling night.
“He took off his britches and
helped get the paper out in his un-
derwear and T-shirt because it was
so incredibly hot,” Schrimsher re-
called for a story in 1985, when the
newspaper celebrated its 75th an-
niversary.
The new building, though, had air
conditioning. When it opened, it
was “the most up-to-date newspa-
per in the state,” as The Times put
it on April 15, 1956, when thousands
of city residents attended an open
house.
It had 16,000 square feet, a new
press and new office equipment,
among other things. Total cost was
$500,000.
The news and advertising de-
partments were at the front of the
building. Composing was in the
middle. The press room and circu-
lation were at the back.
At the time, the newspaper had
70 full-time employees and 250
part-time circulation workers – or
carriers and newspaper handlers.
Circulation was 21,200, almost
19,000 more than when The Birm-
ingham News bought the paper in
1931.
The News’ purchase came about
two years after J. Emory Pierce,
founder of The Huntsville Times,
built The Times Building, a 12-story
structure that was among the city’s
finest for years.
Even before the 1950s, the news-
paper had outgrown that building.
Top executives from The Times and
The News began the search for a
new site.
First, a lot was purchased on the
corner of Gallatin Street and Clin-
ton Avenue. Plans for a two-story
building and a half basement were
drawn.
But the plans were abandoned
when World War II began. The
plans were revived in the late 1940s,
but then the Korean War started.
By 1950, the search began in
earnest. Among the sites considered
were the old Fletcher Mill proper-
ty on Jefferson Street and a city-
owned lot near Big Spring.
Finally, the new site was chosen
after plans for Memorial Parkway
were announced. The land was pur-
chased from Judge Harry Pen-
nington and John Rodenhauser,
then a city councilman, for “$60 a
front foot,” The Times said.
Construction began in late spring
1955. The building was completed
in December 1956, just after S.I.
Newhouse bought The Times and
The Birmingham News for $18.7
million.
In announcing the move, The
Times said, “The only thing ‘old and
homey’ about The Times by Mon-
day will be the telephone number,
which remains the same. But more
than 25 years of life have otherwise
been torn up by the roots – roots
which have had plenty of ink dust
in which to grow.”

‘New, modern building’» An editorial from 1956

This is an editorial from Jan. 22, 1956 –
when Times employees moved from the old
In 1928, when Times building downtown into the current l
the old Times Build- ocation at 2317 S. Memorial Parkway:
ing was new, a radio “1931 marked the depth of The Depression.
cost $65, a suit with There was so little traffic up and down the streets
two pairs of pants past the building that a blunderbuss could have
been fired up and down them from this corner
and overcoat was
– and hardly hit an automobile. Those were
$10.50, and the rough days.
average worker “Then came the strike era of the middle 1930s,
made $1,490 a when it appeared the big textile mills would be
year. closed – and almost lost. But somehow the city
survived.
“The WPA and other government agencies
helped to give employment and keep a thin
stream of industrial activity. But population stood
almost still. In the whole decade from 1931 until
July 3, 1941, when it was announced that a $50
million chemical warfare arsenal would be erect-
ed here, hardly a dozen new, substantial homes
or business establishments were erected. But the
new arsenal set off a boom, and changed the
whole picture. Thousands were given employ-
ment. Huntsville and the area it serves rapidly
got back on their feet.
“After the war, there was some lull, and for a
time when the big chemical warfare arsenal was
liquidated and Redstone Arsenal was put on
standby basis, there was fear that depression
again would overtake us. But the reactivation
of Redstone in late 1948, and its gradual devel-
opment into the Army’s center for development
of rockets and guidance missiles, put new life
and energy and vigor into this whole area. As
we move into our new $600,000 building and
plant on Memorial Parkway, Huntsville is
throbbing on the threshold of another period of
great growth and expansion.
Our new, modern building will permit The
Times to serve this city and its surrounding area
more effectively, as well as more rapidly. Into it
have been plowed back the earnings of a quar-
ter century. The people, the merchants, the busi-
nessmen of this community have built it.”

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H4 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010

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 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010 H5

THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES

» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES

The beginning: Dodging raindrops, dodging the law

1 cylinder
had press
on a roll
On the first day, the newspaper
was printed on a one-cylinder
press, the kind that was popular as
the Civil War was ending.
One-cylinder presses, though,
were hardly the rage when The
Huntsville Times printed its first
issue on March 23, 1910, almost 50
years after the end of the war.
The first day was spent in a tin-
frame building on the corner of
Holmes Avenue and Greene Street,
known then as Metropolitan Av-
enue.
The building’s furnishings in-
cluded the one-cylinder press, a
Model 5 linotype machine, a hand-
ful of body type, a pair of wire pli-
ers, a paper cutter, some large
stones and furniture.
The paper was known then as
The Huntsville Daily Times.
“Founded on optimism, a small
capital, a big ambition to become
a public service enterprise of the
worthwhile kind and a high regard
for ethics of the profession, the
fledgling journal began life with a
determination to surprise its crit-
ics by weathering the first three
months of its existence,” The Times
said in a 1925 article about its ori-
gins. “It accomplished this, strange
as the feat may seem in the light
of better days, and continued to
function with such zeal that it soon
won a place for itself in the sun.”
The newspaper was founded by
J. Emory Pierce, then in his late
20s. Pierce bought the one-cylin-
der press for “the proverbial song,”
as The Times put it in its 1925
story.
The first edition of the paper was
six pages. The next year, the paper
expanded to eight pages.
For as long as the paper was in
the tin building on the corner of
Holmes and Greene, the employ-
ees held an umbrella over the press
when it rained.
The roof leaked, and there was
little floor space. Soon, the paper
grew, and there was a need to move
to a bigger building on Washing-
ton Street.
But Pierce, still The Times’ ed-
itor and publisher when the 1925
article was written, maintained the
paper’s principles never wavered.
“It has been a friend of the
farmer through thick and thin, rec-
ognizing that he is the backbone
of the greater agricultural section
of which Greater Huntsville is the
hub,” the paper said. “It has stood
and still stands for the common
people. It believes in the right of
the masses to self-expression and
to equal opportunity.”
– Mike Marshall
In 1910, a box of
crackers cost 5¢, a
wooden kitchen
chair was 78¢, a
shovel was 48¢, a
stamp was 2¢ and
the average worker
made $630 a year.
COLORFUL EDITOR
ALSO MADE NEWS
By Mike Marshall
Times Staff Writer
mike.marshall@htimes.com
On Sept. 15, 1952, some of the
most famous men in Huntsville
and Alabama attended the funeral
of J. Emory Pierce, the founder of
The Huntsville Times.
The pallbearers included city
councilmen and owners of some
of the city’s best-known depart-
ment stores.
Almost 100 more served as
honorary pallbearers, including
John Sparkman and Lister Hill,
both U.S. senators.
Pierce, 71, died three days ear-
lier of a heart attack. He had been
ill for about six weeks in Houston,
where he was cared for by a sis-
ter, Arvie Pierce.
For the last 15 years of his life,
he had shuttled between Houston
and Memphis, operating The
Pierce Newspaper Publishers Ser-
vice, a national advertising com-
pany. His company also had
branch offices in St. Louis, San
Francisco and Seattle.
He had not spent much time in
Huntsville since the mid-1930s,
when he was the publisher of The
Huntsville Daily Register, his sec-
ond newspaper.
His first newspaper was The
Huntsville Times, known then as
The Huntsville Daily Times.
Pierce started the paper on March
23, 1910, in a tin-frame building
on the corner of Holmes Avenue
and Greene Street.
In the summer of 1925, the
story of The Daily Times’ brief his-
tory was told in the “Greater
Huntsville-Tennessee Valley
Progress edition.” A large front-
page headline was atop the lead
story:
Daily Times has always stood
as the champion of Huntsville
Large photos of Pierce and his
wife, Nannie, the president of The
Times Publishing Co., accompa-
nied the story about the paper’s
history.
“J.E. Pierce, at the beginning as
now, was the editor,” the story said.
“His titles have never changed, al-
though his duties have varied.”
At one time, the story said,
Pierce was the editor, general
Our times, our lives» Making headlines in the 1910s
‘HOUSES OF PROSTITUTION
RUNNING WIDE OPEN IN
HUNTSVILLE AGAIN’
JUNE 10, 1914
Perhaps the most important word in this
headline about prostitution in Huntsville
is the last word – “Again.” The story declares
that the city commissioners agreed with
various religious organizations to oust the
“houses in our midst” on Jan. 1 and voted
to run them out a short time later.
‘SHERIFF KILLS SELF’
JUNE 23, 1916
A week of extraordinary events was
they sold advertising.
For six hours, Pierce sat in the
witness chair, maintaining that he
and Roach did not represent
themselves as government officials
or give farmers any reason to be-
lieve they were buying TVA stock.
He estimated that 3,500 to
5,000 people in 92 counties in
Mississippi, Alabama and Ten-
nessee had paid him $10 to $300
each for advertising.
On cross examination, Pierce
said he had been detained in at
least five counties in Tennessee
and five or six counties in Missis-
LEFT: J. Emory Pierce. RIGHT: The first Huntsville Daily Times
sippi on complaints of dissatisfied
building on Holmes Avenue and Greene Street. It was torn down contributors “for some reasons
by 1925, when this photo was published in the paper. which I do not know.”
manager, business manager, the bly Huntsville. The money, the Added a penthouse
accounting department, the re- farmers were told, was intended His full name was Jacob Emory
porting staff, the office boy and for ads on “booster pages” in The Pierce. He was born on Dec. 20,
window washer. Daily Register. 1881. He was 28 when he found-
“Other than writing the edito- Said Hall in an Associated ed The Daily Times. As editor, he
rials, keeping a general oversight Press story: “He put up to each considered himself “a public ser-
of all departments, and assisting one he sold to that he was inter- vant, ready to respond to every
in promoting countless public ested in the TVA. The advertising civic call,” as The Daily Times’
movements, Mr. Pierce now has was to go in a special TVA edition.” progress edition put it.
comparatively little to do.” Quickly, Pierce prepared a state- Among his favorite editorial
But in 1931 the city, sunk by the ment for the Associated Press, topics were cheaper power, lower
Depression, Pierce’s plans crum- proclaiming his innocence. taxes and better roads. Business,
bled. He defaulted on $200,000 “With no apologies to make for though, was perhaps his main in-
in construction bonds and his selling advertising or any state- terest.
company was taken over by Bond- ments made herewith, I know I He was among the county’s
holders Protective Association. am right, and shall continue to largest landowners. He lived in
On Oct. 10, 1931, Pierce offi- pursue my purpose in exactly the one of the most recognizable
cially lost his paper on the steps same manner I have done for the houses in town, a multi-tiered
of the Madison County Court- past (few) months of allowing home in Five Points known as
house. At a public auction, the each county in the Muscle Shoals “The Wedding Cake House.”
paper was sold to Victor Hanson region to exploit its own natural But The Times Building, com-
of The Birmingham News for and potential resources with a pleted in December 1928, was his
$44,350. view of attracting new people, most enduring achievement.
money and industry its way.” The story of how Pierce’s build-
Trouble in Tennessee Bold as always, Pierce had a ing came to be the biggest in town
As publisher of The Daily Reg- prediction for the trial, to be held has been told and retold. Com-
ister, Pierce also encountered in December. peting with the Russel Erskine
trouble. On Sept. 19, 1935, George “I will be vindicated,” he said. Hotel, also built in the late 1920s,
Hall, the sheriff of Franklin Coun- But he wasn’t. At the trial in Pierce added a penthouse on the
ty, Tenn., arrested Pierce in Win- Memphis, Pierce was convicted of top floor to ensure The Times
chester on charges of “obtaining 17 of 20 fraud counts. Building was taller.
money under false pretenses.” He and his secretary, E.H. Despite his rivalry with the Rus-
About 20 farmers in Franklin Roach, were charged with im- sel Erskine, Pierce found a way to
County had complained to Hall personating government officers capitalize on its construction. In
that Pierce had sold them “units in the sale of newspaper adver- the hotel’s early years, he was di-
of advertising” from $10 to $50 tising to farmers in Tennessee. rector of the Russel Erskine and
each. a shareholder.
The trial was highlighted by
Hall arrested Pierce at a tele- Pierce’s and Roach’s testimonies. “At one time,” read Pierce’s
graph office after Pierce had
Roach, Pierce’s driver, told of av- obituary in The Times, “he was en-
cashed the checks and telegraphed eraging 800 miles a week through gaged in 52 different business en-
the money to another city, possi-
Mississippi and Tennessee, where terprises.”
touched off when “heartless and coward- down on the flourishing “red light”district.
ly thieves” kidnapped and murdered pro-
bate judge W.T. Lawler. Two companies of OTHER NEWS IN THE 1910s:
state militiamen came into the county and June 6, 1917 -Four thousand Huntsville
worked with the sheriff to restore order, men signed up to fight in World War I.
but then Robert Phillips, the sheriff, shot
himself. Phillips, said The Times, “was of Oct. 16, 1918 – Dr. Carl Grote Sr., Madi-
a despondent and nervous temperament son County’s first health officer, announced
and it is presumed the mental strain was 83 people have died from outbreak of
more than he could stand.” Still at large Spanish flu, believed to be brought into the
when the sheriff died was murder suspect county when a solider from Philadelphia
David D. Overton, Huntsville police chief visited his brother in Hazel Green.
for 12 years and circuit clerk at the time
of the murder. All this was going on while Dec. 18, 1918 – Influenza death toll rose
Mayor M.H. Lanier was trying to crack to 393.

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H6 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010

A Century of Service
Celebrating 100 Years of the YMCA in the Valley

from 1910…
Caring. Honesty.
Respect. Responsibility.
Four words. Four principles. Four ideals used to
establish a movement that has touched the lives of
hundreds of millions of individuals, strengthened
countless families, transformed communities and
built a better world.

It is a history that begins in 1910 with the leadership

of YMCA Secretary J. L. Frost and unites with the
philanthropic spirits of Mary Virginia McCormick
and businessman Tracy Pratt. It is a history built by
a legion of volunteers whose willingness to share their time and talents with others made our community stronger. Its impact
can be seen through the photographs and stories of the thousands of individuals who have passed through the doors of the
Central YMCA Building on Green Street, the McCormick Y in Merrimack Mill Village, the Dallas Mill Y, the Southeast Y, the
Northwest Y, the County Ys, Camp Chalakee on Lake Guntersville, and the Downtown Y. During its century of service in Huntsville,
the YMCA helped textile mill workers improve their families’ living conditions, guided young men and women as they built their
athletic abilities through a myriad of sports programs, nurtured young children enrolled in YMCA child care programs, and
provided kids from all walks of life a summer of fun and a lifetime of
memories during their stay at Camp Chalakee on Lake Guntersville.

Through its century of service, the growth and evolution of the Huntsville
YMCA has mirrored many of the changes that have taken place in our
world and within our city. As we trace this history, however, we note
with pride that the four basic tenets of YMCA programs remain the same,
emblazoned on the red, green, blue and yellow banners that greet everyone
as they pass through the doors: Caring. Honest. Respect. Responsibility.
These words, these simple virtues,
are the cornerstones upon which
this organization rests. They are
the signposts that will guide us
to our future.

– Written by Donna Castellano

…to 2010

Caring • Honesty • Respect • Responsibility

0000149789-01
 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010 H7

THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES

» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES

Eleanor Hutchens: An early reporter captivated by journalism

SHE STILL LOVES NEWS AT 90

By Mike Marshall
Times Staff Writer
mike.marshall@htimes.com
At 90, she steadies the newspa-
per each morning under a magni-
fying glass, a recent Christmas pres-
ent from a friend, and tries again to
read the stories.
Lately, she has been interested in
reading about Amy Bishop, the
UAH professor who’s accused in the
shooting deaths of three biology pro-
fessors, but she is able to see only
the headlines.
Macular degeneration and glau-
coma have crept in, making it more
and more difficult, sometimes im-
possible, for Eleanor Hutchens to
read the stories.
This makes her feel “deprived,’’ as
she puts it. For more than 80 years,
the longtime UAH English profes-
sor has been captivated by journal-
ism.
She remembers the exact mo-
ment when she wanted to be a
newspaper writer: standing in the
hall of her home on Williams Av-
enue, once the residence of Thomas
Bibb, the second governor of Al-
abama, and reading a story that en-
thralled her.
She does not remember what the
story was about, just that it excited
her enough to settle on her career.
She was 9.
Later, she recalls, she was in front
of her home, where the paper boy
usually tossed The Huntsville Times
over the gate and onto the sidewalk.
Picking the newspaper off the side-
walk, unwrapping it and reading the
lead stories, lost in the headlines, she
heard some older children walked
past her home.
“Look at her,’’ she recalls them say-
ing, “pretending to read.’’
Look at her. She is heading to-
ward 91, her mind still so keen that
she’s able to summon even the
smallest details of her career at The
Huntsville Times.
“I just loved the whole thing,’’ she
said, “the idea of putting something
in print and telling people what was
going on.’’
She had such an affection for jour-
nalism that she once offered to work
for free.
In 1938, between her sophomore
and junior year, she went to see
Reese Amis, the paper’s longtime
editor.
She asked Amis for a summer job
as a reporter, a request that caused
Amis to pick up the newspaper that
day.
“We’ve only got 28 inches of ad-
vertising,’’ he said. “We can’t afford
anybody else.’’
She remembers telling Amis that
she’d work for free.
“That’s against our policy,’’ he told
her.
Edited college paper
Undaunted, she continued in
journalism, editing her college
newspaper as a senior.
Her first story in a daily newspa-
per was in The Atlanta Georgian, a
Hearst newspaper, one of three
dailies in Atlanta at the time.
She was a student at Agnes Scott,
a correspondent or “stringer,’’ in
newspaper terminology. For each
inch they wrote, correspondents
were paid 20 cents by The Georgian
– 10 cents more than they received
from The Atlanta Constitution or
The Atlanta Journal, the city’s more
prestigious dailies.
Hutchens’ first story for The
Georgian was about a study con-
cerning the nature of student phone
calls at Agnes Scott.
“It ended up on page 1,’’ she said.
“It was the happiest day of my life.’’
Soon, there were more happy
days, these at The Huntsville Times.
From 1944-47, she wrote news sto-
ries and editorials, edited Associat-
ed Press stories and the columns of
Drew Pearson, the leading syndi-
cated columnist of the era.
In the mornings around 8, she
began the walk from her home to
The Times Building - north on
Greene Street to the intersection of
Holmes Avenue and Greene. There,
she went to the Times newsroom on
the second floor.
Her career at The Times includ-
ed the final years of World War II.
Hutchens recalls being the only
city reporter during those years, a
job made even more difficult be-
cause she did not have a car. In those
days, there was no such thing as a
company car, either.
“I was a big telephone person,’’ she
said. “I stayed on the phone and ran
around town.’’
Usually, she canvassed City Hall,
the courthouse, the police and fire
departments, the banks. At the
banks, she found someone who
could tell her if the farmers were
making regular payments on their
loans, allowing her to assess the agri-
cultural health of Madison County,
one of the leading farming counties
in the state.
Among her favorite assignments:
Amis, the paper’s legendary editor,
naming her Far Eastern editor dur-
ing the war.
Amis, a World War I veteran, had
strong interest in the war in Europe.
A “National Geographic’’ map in the
Times office had a cluster of push
pins, monitoring the Allies’ march
through Europe.
But the Pacific campaign had lit-
tle hold on him. One day, she recalls,
Amis announced, “Eleanor, I’m
making you Far Eastern editor. I’m
not interested in the Far East. You
cover the Far Eastern war.’’
Eric Schultz/The Huntsville Times
So she wrote editorials about the
war in the Pacific, and Amis stuck
to editorials about the war in Eu-
rope.
“I made suggestions to the Navy
from time to time, and Mr. Amis
made suggestions to the Army,’’ she
said. “We did it in the most re-
spectful way as possible.’’
She remembers Amis, Times ed-
itor from 1931 to 1958, as an intense
man, smart and ambitious, who fa-
vored long drives in the country with
his wife, Mildred.
‘Roosevelt is dead’
On the afternoon of April 12,
1945, he and Mildred went for an-
other drive through the county.
Around 2 p.m. that day, the af-
ternoon’s paper already gone to
press, she went home for her regu-
lar afternoon nap. About the time
she was almost drifting off to sleep,
she received a phone call from Ver-
non “Popeye’’ Miller, who bundled
papers in the Times press room.
Popeye was known for his
strength and pranks. Hutchens
thought Popeye was kidding when
he told her that President Franklin
Roosevelt was dead.
Popeye told her to turn on her
radio. Sure enough, the radio an-
nouncer told her, Roosevelt had died
of a stroke.
Frantically, she tried to find Amis.
But he had no phone in his office, and
no one at the paper could find him.
Hutchens rushed to The Times
Building and began preparations for
an extra edition of the paper. Her
first duties: Instruct the people in
composing to find some “second-
coming type’’ – the biggest available
at the paper.
Then she found a large, distin-
guished portrait of Roosevelt. In the
next frantic moments, she tried to
remember the name of Roosevelt’s
vice president, the new president.
Finally, it came to her: Truman,
Harry Truman. She phoned the As-
sociated Press and requested some
stories on the new president.
Jack Langhorne, the paper’s busi-
ness manager and later publisher,
offered to write the main headline.
His contribution: “FDR Claimed by
Death.’’
But Hutchens thought the initials
were inappropriate. Instead, she
composed a more formal and
somber headline – “Roosevelt is
Dead.’’
By evening, the extra edition was
on the streets. From the newsroom,
she could hear the news boys yelling
“EXTRA! EXTRA!’’
People rushed into the streets for
one newspaper, then another, buy-
ing them as keepsakes.
After the extra had been pub-
lished and distributed, Amis arrived
at the office. Hutchens waited for his
approval.
“I was out riding around with Mil-
dred and heard the news on the
radio,’’ he told Hutchens. “I decid-
ed not to have an extra, but I guess
you were right.’’
Because of the war, there was a
shortage of newsprint, causing Amis
to believe that putting out an extra
edition wasn’t such a good idea.
But when 5,000 or so copies were
sold, Amis changed his mind.
“Some people were buying mul-
tiple copies,’’ Hutchens said. “It’s the
only time I can recall people run-
ning into the street to get the
paper.’’

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H8 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010
THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES
» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES
We asked six former Huntsville Times employees, all with 40 or more years at the paper,
what’s made the paper influential through the years. We also asked them to choose one
memorable story from their careers here. Here’s what they said.
Pat McCauley
Reporter, 1949-1954
Editor, 1966-1994
F
ew newsroom employ-
ees in the history of
The Huntsville Times
have a wider perspective
than Pat McCauley, the
newspaper’s fifth editor.
McCauley’s career at The
Times spanned six decades
– parts of the ’40s, ’50s and
’60s, then all of the ’70s and
’80s, then the early years of
the ’90s.
He saw The Times during
the most dynamic years of
growth, from a six-day-a-
week paper with a circula-
tion of about 15,000 to a
seven-day-a-week paper
with a circulation of more
than 60,000.
Even now, in his early 80s
and 16 years after his re-
tirement from the newspa-
per, McCauley still keeps a
notepad on his desk, near a
biography of Leo Tolstoy
and a machine that enlarges
type in books and periodi-
cals.
“Patrick McCauley, editor,
The Huntsville Times,” reads
the top of the notepad.
McCauley was 22 when
he came to work at The
Times on Oct. 29, 1949.
He’d never heard of Hunts-
ville when Paul Newman,
The Times’ sports editor,
told him of a job opening.
He boarded a train in
Alexandria, La., his home-
town, and arrived in
Huntsville around 2 on the
morning of Oct. 26, 1949.
A battered taxi picked
him up at the Huntsville
train depot. McCauley told
the cabbie to take him to a
clean and inexpensive hotel.
The driver took him to the
Twickenham.
The next day, McCauley
headed over to The Times
Building to meet his new
boss, Reese Amis, the paper’s
longtime editor.
“It was the most beautiful
little town,” McCauley said.
“It was crisp and cool when
I walked down to the old
Times Building. My, what an
edifice.”
Amis told him to find a
place to live, take care of a
few personal matters, and
start work the next day.
On his second day on the
job, he covered his first big
story – the burning of the
Huntsville freight depot.
Later, McCauley covered
several big stories, many of
them important events in
the city’s history. Among
them: the city’s first zoning
ordinance and the City
Council’s plans to build
Memorial Parkway.
The enacting of the city’s
first zoning ordinance was
memorable because it was
passed on July 14, 1950, the
day before McCauley was
married.
“I had been covering that
since I had been here,” Mc-
Cauley said. “It was a tense
local issue. I wasn’t going to
miss the actual enactment of
the ordinance.”
So while McCauley’s par-
ents and fiancée went to a
pre-wedding party, Mc-
Cauley went to the City
Council meeting, held on a
Friday night.
The next day, hours before
his wedding, McCauley went
to the paper to write his
story for the Sunday paper.
“I was afraid I’d be late for
the wedding,” McCauley
said. “It turned out to be a
long and detailed story. I
don’t even remember getting
a byline.”
– Mike Marshall
Pat McCauley’s
memorable story
From July 16, 1950
Huntsville adopts
first zoning
Here is an excerpt of
one of Pat McCauley’s
most memorable stories –
his account of the City
Council meeting in which
the council adopted the
city’s first zoning ordi-
nance the night before he
was married.
Huntsville has a new zon-
ing ordinance.
The new regulation,
which will divide the city
into various types of resi-
dential, commercial and in-
dustrial areas, was adopted
during an adjourned session
of the City Council, Friday
night. It will become effec-
tive immediately upon pub-
lication in The Times.
A unanimous vote was ac-
corded the motion by Al-
derman Jimmy Davis that
the ordinance be adopted
after the councilmen had
mulled the proposal for
more than an hour and a
half behind closed doors.
A group of some 75 citi-
zens were present at the ad-
journed meeting of the
Council Friday night. They
waited through the execu-
tive session, plus the hour-
long reading of the ordi-
nance which preceded its
adoption. Prior to going into
the executive session, the
Council was addressed by
two men speaking in favor
of the ordinance, and re-
quested its adoption in the
form if its publication (is) in
The Huntsville Times.
Martin Phillips, engineer
for the Huntsville Public
Housing Authority, which is
financing construction here
of 350 low-rent housing
units to the tune of some
$6,000,000, has done so on
the assumption that the city
would have a zoning ordi-
nance. He stated that the re-
gional office in Atlanta has
checked this ordinance, and
found it to be satisfactory in
every respect – so satisfac-
tory that the local authority
already has been allowed to
make expenditures of
$23,000 in the planning
stage of the development
program.
Mr. Phillips, speaking for
the local authority, urged
adoption of the ordinance as
published in The Times.
Dick Shelton, local contrac-
tor, addressed the council
briefly and presented it with
a petition signed by more
than 100 property owners in
the Whitesburg area, urging
immediate adoption of the
ordinance as published.
Bob Ward
Reporter, 1957-1961
Copy editor, 1961-1962
Aerospace writer
Sunday editor
Associate editor
Managing editor, 1974-1994
Editor, 1994
Assistant to the publisher,
1994-2000
B
ob Ward held more ti-
tles – influential, im-
portant titles – than
perhaps any newsroom em-
ployee in the history of The
Huntsville Times.
He came to the paper in
February 1957, after nine
months as a public relations
and advertising assistant at
a corporation in Birming-
ham.
First, he was the police re-
porter. Once, he and a pho-
tographer, acting on a tip
from a source, found sever-
al bootleggers and posed as
customers.
“We bought some of their
goods, and then went to the
district attorney and cases
were made against them,”
Ward said. “Raids were con-
ducted the next morning, a
Sunday, and they were pros-
ecuted.”
Next, Ward was county
reporter, then spent one
year on the copy desk. In the
early 1960s, during the
buildup of NASA and Mar-
shall Space Flight Center, he
became the paper’s first
aerospace writer.
Ward became The Times’
editor when Pat McCauley
retired in March 1994. He
was an assistant to Times
Publisher Bob Ludwig for
six years, until his retirement
in August 2000.
In his more than 43 years
with the newspaper, Ward
covered some of the most
important events in Amer-
ican history: the Apollo 11
launch to the moon, the in-
tegration of the University of
Mississippi and the bomb-
ing of the Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church in Birming-
ham.
At Ole Miss, he covered
the rioting from behind trees
as gunshots and canisters of
tear gas were fired.
“We were sympathetic to
the civil rights movement,
and we covered the various
events, including some of
the sit-ins downtown,” he
said. “Editorially, the paper
never endorsed George Wal-
lace in a race, except for the
last one when he was in a
wheelchair and didn’t have
credible opposition and was
penitent about his racial
policies.”
The paper’s editorials on
racial matters, Ward said,
helped lead to the peaceful
integration of the city
schools in 1963.
Editorials in The Times
were critical of Wallace’s
stand in the schoolhouse
door at the University of Al-
abama and his orders to
close the Huntsville public
schools on Sept. 6, 1963,
three days before the city
schools were integrated.
“I was proud to work for
a progressive newspaper,”
Ward said. “I can’t say we
were the only paper to take
that kind of position, but we
were unusual. Of course, we
had a lot of new residents in
Huntsville and Madison
County, and so our position
had a good deal of support
in the community.
“We were perceived as
being quite progressive and
in tune with the population’s
sentiments.”
– Mike Marshall
Bob Ward’s
memorable story
From July 17, 1969
Apollo 11: On the
shoulders of a
pioneer
Here is an excerpt from
one of Ward’s most mem-
orable stories from his 43
years at The Times. It’s a
story by Ward, then the
newspaper’s Sunday edi-
tor, that was published on
July 17, 1969, after the
launch of Apollo 11.
CAPE KENNEDY – His
shoulders are old and
stooped now, but the Apol-
lo 11 astronauts stood on
them Wednesday when they
rocketed off to walk on the
moon.
He is Prof. Hermann
Oberth, 84, the German sci-
entist whose theoretical
studies back in the 1920s on
space travel inspired young
Germans like Wernher von
Braun to take up careers in
rocketry.
Sitting three miles from
the launch pad Wednesday,
the white-haired visionary
watched a boyhood dream
about to come true.
“It was marvelous,” he
said afterward in a fleeting
interview with The Times.
“When I began thinking of
this flight (to the moon), I
was a boy of 11. It was just
as I imagined – only more
marvelous.”
Oberth Wednesday indi-
cated he considers the Apol-
lo 11 mission to the moon
only the beginning of
manned interplanetary trav-
el and exploration. Asked
when he thought a manned
mission to Mars might be
launched, he answered: “In
1982 at the earliest – or if we
go first-class about 1986.”
Chris Bell’s
memorable story
From March 7, 1969
James Earl Ray
will plead guilty
James Earl Ray, accused
of the slaying of Dr. Martin
Luther King in Memphis,
Tenn., almost a year ago, will
enter a guilty plea Monday
and receive a 99-year sen-
tence, The Times was told
today by a source close to the
Chris Bell case.
Memphis Judge W. Pre-
ston Battle was to begin
Reporter, 1964-2006
today alerting newsmen to
H
e drove a Lincoln be in his court Monday for
new developments in the
Continental and
sensational case, the source
wore ice-cream
coats, suspenders and ties said.
Ray has been in a Mem-
loud enough to announce
phis jail under tight securi-
his presence. He was a na-
tive of New Orleans, the ty since shortly after he was
captured in London, Eng-
Deep South center of flam-
land, on June 8.
boyant characters.
Once, Chris Bell worked Dr. King was shot to death
in Memphis last April 4 as
for The New Orleans Times-
he stood on the balcony of
Picayune. His time there
helped him land a reporting the Lorraine Motel during a
new civic cause for the Nobel
job with The Huntsville
Prize winner – economic
Times in February 1964.
He had come to North Al- equality.
It was during a continu-
abama because his brothers
ing garbage strike that
had moved here. Figuring
he’d return to newspapers, Memphis became a riot-
torn city. King had come to
he decided to seek a job at
Memphis to lend support to
The Huntsville Times.
“I always make myself the 6,000 striking sanitation
workers – most of them
known to people when I go
Negroes who were seeking
places,” Bell said.
When he arrived in North higher wages and other ben-
efits.
Alabama, Bell decided to
The source said today the
make himself known to
Leroy Simms, the editor of state of Tennessee has
agreed to recommend a 99-
The Huntsville Times.
year sentence when Ray en-
The conversation went
like this, according to Bell: ters a guilty plea.
“It’s the only way Ray can
Bell: “I’m Chris Bell. I’ve
escape the death sentence,”
worked at The Times-
Picayune. I’d like a job.” the source said.
Simms: “OK, you’ve got
one.”
Bell covered Limestone
and Morgan counties until
his retirement in 2006. But
he liked the big stories, the
ones that received national
and international attention.
When the Selma-to-
Montgomery march was
held in March 1965, Bell
couldn’t resist going. It was
to be among the most im-
portant events of the civil
rights movement, and Bell
wanted to be there, even
though his bosses hadn’t
told him to go to Selma.
“It was 10 a.m. that morn-
ing,” Bell said. “I couldn’t
stand it. I had a pilot fly me
there, and he sent the bill to
The Huntsville Times.”
Bell covered the opening
of the march. A photogra-
pher snapped a photo of Bell
interviewing The Rev. Mar-
tin Luther King Jr. on the
side of U.S. 80, the highway
from Selma to Montgomery.
The photo is now in the
Alabama Department of
Archives and History.
Three years later, Bell was
in Memphis, covering King’s
participation in a sanitation
workers’ strike. Bell stayed in
the Holiday Inn Rivermont,
the same hotel as King.
At the hotel, Bell saw
Ralph Abernathy, King’s top
aide in the Southern Chris-
tian Leadership Conference,
and arranged an interview
with King.
“What you do,” Bell said,
“is put yourself in position.”
Bell had a brief interview
with King and took some
photographs of King and
Abernathy.
Two days later, King was
assassinated on the balcony
of the Lorraine Motel. On
June 8, 1968, almost two
months after the assassina-
tion, James Earl Ray was ar-
rested in London.
Later, Ray confessed to as-
sassinating King. Bell broke
the story that Ray would
plead guilty to a 99-year sen-
tence. The story was carried
in newspapers all over the
world. Three days later, Ray
pleaded guilty and received
a 99-year sentence, just as
Bell had reported.
“I was a no-nonsense re-
porter,” Bell said, “because
the bottom line is, I am after
the story.”
– Mike Marshall

We asked six former Huntsville Times employees, all with 40 or more years at the paper,
what’s made the paper influential through the years. We also asked them to choose one
memorable story from their careers here. Here’s what they said.
John Pruett
Sports writer, 1966-1970
Assistant sports editor,
1970-1974
Sports editor, 1974-2008
F
or many years, John
Pruett and Bill East-
erling were perhaps
the most high-profile writ-
ers at The Huntsville Times.
Pruett and Easterling
were close friends for virtu-
ally the length of their pro-
fessional lives – a relation-
ship that began, in essence,
when Easterling hired
Pruett in 1966.
Pruett, then in his mid-
20s, had worked for one year
and nine months in the
one-man sports department
at the Huntsville News, the
city’s now-defunct morning
newspaper.
Easterling hired him in
the fall of 1966, when The
Times was among the
fastest-growing newspapers
in the South.
“The Times was the
largest and most influential
source of news and infor-
mation not only in the Ten-
nessee Valley but also in the
entire northern tier of the
state,” Pruett said. “It was a
grand and exciting time in
the history of Huntsville –
and was probably the be-
ginning of the heyday in the
history of The Huntsville
Times, too.
“So many major news
events were taking place –
the growth of Redstone Ar-
senal, the coming of the
Space Age and the Marshall
Space Flight Center, the end
of segregation in public
schools, the continuing
transformation of Huntsville
from a little cotton town to
the high-tech center of the
state.”
In those days, Pruett said,
everybody relied on the
newspaper.
“Local TV news was in its
infancy,” he said. “Radio
news was spotty, and talk
radio was virtually non-ex-
istent. The Internet was a
whole generation in the fu-
ture. Without question, the
region’s biggest newspaper
was the most influential
source for information and
opinion-making.”
Pruett stayed at The
Times for 41 years, until his
retirement in 2008. After he
succeeded Easterling as
sports editor in 1973, he was
regarded as the city’s most
respected sports media fig-
ure, a temperate voice before
the shrill of talk radio.
An example of that re-
spect: Then-Auburn head
football coach Tommy Tu-
berville, Alabama Athletic
Director Mal Moore, former
Auburn head basketball
coach Sonny Smith and for-
mer Auburn Athletic Direc-
tor David Housel were
among the guests at a re-
tirement party in Pruett’s
honor.
He was always considered
“a writer’s writer,” a journal-
ist who was noted for his
fondness of words and how
to use them.
“I believe there’ll always
be a need and a market for
good writers, good editors
and good photographers,
whether in traditional print
or online,” he said. “I believe
that will be our legacy and
our future. We will survive
and we will endure.
“What’s the old saying?
‘There’ll always be an Eng-
land.’ Well, I believe there’ll
always be a Huntsville
Times, too, for at least 100
more years and beyond.”
– Mike Marshall
John Pruett’s
memorable story
From Sept. 24, 1978
On the death
of his father
Here’s an excerpt from
one of John Pruett’s most
memorable stories in his
41-plus years at The
Huntsville Times. It’s a
column he wrote on Sept.
24, 1978, after his father
had died of cancer. This is
how it ended:
For almost 74 years, he
lived a good and gentle and
humanitarian life.
I never heard him say an
intentionally mean or petty
thing about another human
being, and I never heard him
lament the burden he had to
carry at the end. The only
time I saw him weep was
one day when he spoke of his
beloved sister-in-law Mae,
who had been ill for years,
bedfast for months and crit-
ical for weeks.
By some inexplicable fate
known only to God, Dad and
Aunt Mae died the same day,
twenty minutes apart.
Just the day before, he
and I were talking, and he
said something I’ll carry to
my own grave. The voice was
a faint whisper by then, but
in my mind his words re-
verberated throughout that
hospital room as if they had
been shouted into a micro-
phone. He said, “You re-
member when this thing
started, I said we were in for
a great educational experi-
ence? Well, I’ve learned a lot
about myself that I didn’t
know, and a lot about other
people, too.
“Remember this: John
3:16 is essential, but a man’s
works count, too. I’ve
learned that. And I’ve
learned that 97 percent of
the people you meet are
good folks, and the other
three percent could be if they
really tried, and those are the
ones you’ve got to reach.”
To me, that was the main
thing about Herman Pruett:
He cared for the 97 percent,
but he cared even more for
the three percent. That spe-
cial caring, that genuine
caring, is what set him apart
from most ordinary faces in
the crowd.
I supposed most sons be-
lieve their fathers are great
men. I know mine was.
In all respects, he was the
best man I have ever known.
» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES
Joe Duncan
Copy editor, 1967-1973
Sports managing editor,
1973-1974
Assistant news editor,
1975-1979
News editor, 1979-2009
H
e never had a byline.
His photograph nev-
er appeared in the
newspaper, except for some
long-ago dabbling in the
sports department.
But for 42 years, Joe Dun-
can was crucial to the daily
operations of The Huntsville
Times.
As longtime Times sports
editor John Pruett put it,
Duncan was “the unsung
hero of the newsroom” –
universally liked and ad-
mired by his co-workers.
Duncan was a copy editor,
managing sports editor and
assistant news editor. For the
final 30 years of his news-
paper career, he was The
Times’ news editor, respon-
sible for story selection,
headlines, copy editing.
He spent long hours at the
newspaper each day, per-
haps longer than anyone. He
worked those hours because
he believed 12- to 14-hour
days were “what I needed to
do to get the job done,” he
said.
When The Times was an
afternoon newspaper, he
came into work at 3 a.m. –
every morning, without fail.
When The Times became a
morning newspaper in
2004, he arrived around 10
a.m. and stayed until mid-
night.
His bosses told him to cut
down on his hours. But he
refused, maintaining those
hours until his retirement
last spring.
Duncan came to work at
The Times in March 1967.
“In the early days, the
paper had a great deal of in-
fluence,” Duncan said. “I
can remember one time
when we had somebody in
from the Belo Foundation in
Dallas to see how we were
doing.”
The representative from
the Belo Foundation, a
newspaper cooperative,
asked Hubert Hawkins,
then The Times’ circulation
director, about penetration
– an industry term for how
many people the newspaper
was reaching in its area.
Hawkins told the Belo
representative that The
Times’ penetration was 95
percent, as Duncan recalled.
“He told (Hawkins), ‘If
you’ve got that much pene-
tration, why have you got me
here?’” Duncan said.
Why has The Times had
such influence?
“I think we just covered
things fairly,” he said. “A lot
of people thought we were
too liberal, some thought we
were too conservative. But I
think we were fair and thor-
ough, and people realized
that and could trust us.”
– Mike Marshall
THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES
Joe Duncan’s
memorable story
From April 14, 1974
Tornado at Guin
Here is an excerpt from
one of Joe Duncan’s most
memorable stories from
his 42 years at The Times.
It’s a story published on
April 14, 1974, by James
K. Hutsell, then the
paper’s associate editor.
Hutsell is writing about
Guin, a small Alabama
town that was hit particu-
larly hard by the tornadoes
that barreled through
North Alabama on April 4
of that year.
GUIN, Ala. – On your
map, place a dot beside this
small Alabama town near
the Mississippi border and
extend from it a straight line
northeastward to another
dot on your map in Canada
that marks Windsor, On-
tario.
The path, 650 miles long,
will follow the classical di-
rectional sweep of torna-
does. On your map, mark it
Tornado Alley, 1974. It is the
death route of the second-
most disastrous series of
tornadoes in the United
States in this century.
And here in this town of
2,200 population, at least 23
persons were fatally injured
on the evening of April 3.
More persons apparently
died here than in any area of
compatible size in that
evening’s storms.
In the space of a minute,
Guin was blown into the
record books and nearly off
the map. And it is from here
that our Easter story comes.
We came here to do it be-
cause it was an obviously
natural place to do such a
piece. There would be
churches down, we figured,
and preachers ready to spill
a free sermon and able to
cite not only chapter and
verse but to provide names
and new graves and tired
clichés about faith and hope.
And, as a nice little touch
of irony or fate, we could
bring along the premium-
due notice of an insurance
policy-holder. We had
picked it up on our back lot
at Harvest, Ala. – also in an
area where that same April
night’s storms had left al-
most absolutely nothing in-
tact. From Guin to Harvest
is, as the crow and tornado
fly, almost precisely 90
miles.
The insurance firm’s state-
ment once had been in-
tended to remind a Sharon
Burleson, Route 1, Guin,
that her annual payment
was due. Had she paid it?
Where was Sharon now,
alive or dead? Obviously, her
home or former home al-
most certainly must be dam-
aged or demolished – oth-
erwise the tornado would
not have borne this notice
for 90 miles up Tornado
Alley.
(Hutsell arrived in Guin
around noon one afternoon
after the tornado and went
to a rescue shelter.)
We checked on the
Burlesons of Route 1. The
card files turned up the
family in 10 seconds. Was
there any chance of locating
them? We asked Marion
County Civil Defense Di-
rector Fred Johnson. We
showed him the insurance
policy.
We were mutually agree-
ing that tornadoes do funny
things and fashion strange
ironies – and that fact out-
does fiction, and would
make smelly fiction. And at
that moment in walks
Sharon Burleson Couch
with her 2-year-old son
Chad in her arms. On her
first visit to the relief head-
quarters.
So we said, “Is this your
insurance notice?” And, at
that moment in walks
Sharon’s mother from Route
1, where the Burlesons’ brick
house had been blown away.
The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010 H9
John Ehinger’s
memorable story
From Sept. 16, 2007
On the end of his
20-year hike of the
Appalachian Trail
Beginning in 1988,
Ehinger began hiking the
Appalachian Trail and re-
lating his experiences in
the newspaper. Those sto-
ries, he said, generated
more reader reaction than
John Ehinger his editorials. Here is an
excerpt from Sept. 16,
2007, when Ehinger
Reporter, 1967-1977
Editorial writer, 1977-79 writes about completing
the trial.
City editor, 1979-1985
Editorial page editor, 1985-
Maine, Aug. 15, noon. I’m
2009 standing at a bouldered crag
at what I take to be the Gate-
J
ohn Ehinger came to way on the north end of
work at The Huntsville
Mount Katahdin’s winding
Times in September
ridge line. And, for the mo-
1967 because his mother
ment, I am alone.
“deviled me,” as he put it.
To the north, I look across
Day after day, Ehinger’s
at the peaks of the mountain
mother told him, “Get on the
called the Owl and Barren.
phone and call that man.”
From afar they appear as
Ehinger did as his moth-
smooth forms washed in
er instructed. He got on the
colors of green and gray. But
phone and called Pat Mc-
that is no doubt deceptive.
Cauley, then The Times’ ed-
Here, above treeline, the
itor.
wind blows in gusts. To the
His mother wanted him
west, rain squalls form and
to have a job while he fin-
move in my direction. Some
ished his degree in English
veer south of me, some
from the University of Al-
north. The ones that pass di-
abama in Huntsville.
rectly over are little to worry
Ehinger just wanted some
about. The rain is light, and
money for records and beer.
the wind blows it almost
“Send me some (stories),” horizontally.
McCauley told him.
It’s chilly, but I have water
After more daily phone
and food, and I’m warm. I’m
calls, McCauley told him,
wearing rain pants, a fleece
“Come on down and we’ll
jacket and a rain jacket with
find something for you.”
a hood.
They found something
When the squalls move in,
for him, all right. For most
I lean back in a vertical rock
of the next 42 years, Ehinger
crevice, one side of which ex-
worked at the newspaper,
tends out just enough to
first as a general assignment
keep the rain off. A couple
reporter and police reporter.
of times, I doze off standing
In the early 1970s,
up.
Ehinger left the paper for a
The crevice itself is re-
couple of years to get his
markable for one other fact:
master’s in English from It’s the Appalachian Trail.
the University of Connecti-
From there, it goes straight
cut. When he returned to
up a rock face. The route is
Huntsville, he was the
made easier, supposedly, by
paper’s City Hall reporter be-
two iron bars driven into the
fore his promotion to city ed-
rock. Supposedly.
itor in 1979.
I am on Mount Katahdin.
For the last 24 years of his
I am not at the peak, Baxter
career, Ehinger was The
Peak, but on Katahdin
Times’ editorial-page editor.
nonetheless. Here I have
“I always viewed my role
decided to finish my 20-year
as looking at issues and
effort to hike the Ap-
questions of the day and giv-
palachian Trail. I’m sur-
ing readers an honest opin-
prised it has ended where it
ion,” Ehinger said. “Some-
has, but I feel like I’ve done
times it was popular, some-
it. I’m satisfied, and, for the
times it wasn’t.”
first time in days, I can
Fine with Ehinger. He
relax.
wasn’t trying to win a pop-
ularity contest.
“It’s not a newspaper’s
role to tell people what they
want to hear,” Ehinger said.
An example: Around
1989, then-Mayor Steve
Hettinger proposed extend-
ing Carl T. Jones Drive over
Huntsville Mountain and
into Hampton Cove, then
undeveloped.
A new Robert Trent Jones
golf course was considered
the centerpiece of the early
development. In editorials,
Ehinger referred to Het-
tinger’s proposal as “The
Road to a Golf Course.”
Other examples of the
paper’s editorial influence:
the endorsement of a half-
cent sales tax in 1989, when
the city “had a real financial
problem with growth and an
inability to meet infrastruc-
ture needs.”
Said Ehinger: “I think we
helped get that passed.
That’s the last time the city
sales tax has gone up.”
In 1996, with Hettinger
deciding not to seek re-elec-
tion, the top contenders for
mayor were banker Dean
O’Farrell, restaurant owner
Larry Mullins and Loretta
Spencer.
The newspaper endorsed
Spencer, who’d been active
on the planning commission
and in community service.
She served three terms.
“At the time, she was not
the clear front-runner,”
Ehinger said. “That’s the
one case I saw where (an ed-
itorial) may have had a sig-
nificant impact.”
– Mike Marshall
H10 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010 H11

THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES

» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES » CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES

Changes over time

March 23, 1910 – 1925 – Pierce December 1928 – Paper begins the move to the new Times building, a 12-story structure 1956 – Paper moves November 1964 – Simms is 1985 – William C. “Bill” March 1994 – McCauley retires. Bob Ward, Sept. 13, 2004 – July 14, 2008
Huntsville Daily reveals plans to in the heart of downtown. To ensure that the Times building is larger than the Russel to new building at 2317 named editor and publisher Green, vice president and managing editor of The Times, becomes After 94 years as a – Kevin
Times publishes its build a new Daily Erskine Hotel and the tallest in town, Pierce builds a penthouse on the top floor. S. Memorial Parkway. after Langhorne’s death. general manager of The editor. daily afternoon Wendt,
first edition in a tin- Times building on Dec. 18, 1928 – Paper prints its first edition on its new Goss press at the new Times Birmingham News, is named May 1994 – Green, 72, dies. Bob Ludwig, newspaper, The assistant
frame building on the corner of building. The paper reports that the “big Goss duplex press” cost in excess of $100,000 publisher as paper celebrates advertising director of The Grand Rapids Press Times becomes a managing
corner of Holmes Holmes and 1958 – its 75th anniversary. morning paper. editor of The
and is capable of printing 25,000 copies per hour. in Michigan, is named publisher.
Avenue and Greene Greene. An early Amis Mercury News
December 1955 retires and September November 1994 – Joe Distelheim, editor of
Street, known then drawing includes June 6, 1931 – The Times goes into the hands of federal receivers. Pierce’s – Paper is sold to in San Jose,
as Metropolitan Pierce’s name Will Mickle 1960 – First The Anniston Star, is named editor. Ward Calif., is
1917 – By start of World company had defaulted on payment of $200,000 in building bonds. S.I. Newhouse, Saturday becomes assistant to the publisher.
Avenue . J. Emory engraved on the becomes named editor.
War I, the paper, needing Oct. 10, 1931 – Pierce loses his paper for good on the steps of the Madison who pays $16.5 edition is
Pierce, 28, is the side of the building. editor.
more floor space, moves County Courthouse. The Times is sold at a public auction to Victor H. Hanson million for The printed.
founder of the paper Langhorne
to a larger building on of The Birmingham News on a bid of $44,350. Among the bidders are Pierce’s Birmingham August 1989 – A $25 million October
and its first editor becomes September 2002 –
Washington Street. A son, William H., and Col. Harry Ayers, publisher of The Anniston Star. News, The expansion brings a new 2007 –
and publisher. publisher. Distelheim retires.
favorite local pastime is Huntsville Times press, a new distribution Gorham
November 1931 – Reese Amis becomes editor, and Jack Langhorne is named January 1961 – Managing Editor
to gather at the new and WHBS-AM, 1966 – Old press is sold. New 96-page Hoe press is installed. A $1.5 center and renovations to retires for
advertising manager. Amis changes the newspaper’s name to The Huntsville Mickle dies. Leroy Melinda Gorham is
Daily Times building to the radio station million expansion – second expansion since the paper moved to the newsroom, advertising medical
Times because it is not a daily newspaper, publishing only six days a week. A. Simms, named editor.
monitor war news on the operated by The South Parkway – increases floor space 70 percent to 36,372 square and circulation offices. reasons.
paper’s bulletin board. Times. managing editor
of The feet. Pat McCauley is named editor. Ludwig
1940 – Idea for a new Times building is broached by briefly also
Victor Hanson, publisher of The Birmingham News. Birmingham News,
becomes editor. acts as
editor.

1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

1931 – Daily 1939 – Circulation 1947 – 1951 – Circulation 1962 – 1972 – Circulation 1985 – Circulation is almost 57,000 daily 1996 – Sunday
circulation is is 8,007. Circulation is 16,120. Circulation is 55,000. and 65,000 on Sundays circulation is about
2,600. is 13,746. is 35,000. 80,000.
Editors
Pierce Amis Mickle Simms McCauley Distelheim Gorham Wendt

Publishers
Pierce Amis Langhorne Simms Green Ludwig

As this array of pictures shows, one thing that changed little from its invention in the alignment inside the machine. When a line of type was finished, a shot of a molten lead and the lines fitted into columns under their headline by men like Leo Burns in the 1952 metal was hot, dangerous but skilled work. In the 1970s, after a nearly 100-year run,
1880s was the typesetting machine, the Linotype. Typing on a keyboard – but with the alloy hit the brass letters and hardened. The brass letters went back into their slots in photo at far right. A copy of each page was made from a papier-mache-like material these machines were gradually replaced and the employees were retrained to use a
keys in a different order than typewriter or computer keyboards – operators typed the the machine and the still-hot metal line of type fell into a stack above the previous line. pressed onto it, and the dried, cardboard-like result was used to make a curved lead computerized photo-typesetting process, which is continually evolving and is today’s
stories as the editors sent them. Each keystroke brought a brass copy off the letter into When the stack reached about two feet in length, the tray of type was carried to a frame alloy casting that would fit on the rollers on the press. Working around pots of molten industry standard. One of these Linotypes is on display at The Huntsville Times.

Stories that changed the times

RAY’S GUILTY PLEA, AIDS VICTIM’S TRAGEDY STAND OUT

By Mike Marshall
Times Staff Writer
mike.marshall@htimes.com
Stories. So many stories in the 100 years
of The Huntsville Times. A handful stand out,
in the estimation of some former longtime ed-
itors.
Perhaps one of the most celebrated stories
in the paper’s history was published in the
spring of 1969. Chris Bell, The Times’ corre-
spondent for Morgan and Limestone coun-
ties, broke the story that James Earl Ray was
about to plead guilty and receive a 99-year
sentence for the assassination of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.
Bell was given a tip by William Bradford
Huie, an author and magazine writer from
Hartselle. Huie was heavily involved in some
of the most notorious cases of the civil rights
era, including the murders of Emmett Till and
three civil rights workers in Philadelphia,
Miss.
Huie practiced what was known as “check-
book journalism.” He believed that paying sus-
pects in civil rights murders was often the only
way to the truth, in part because juries and
judges in the Deep South were usually sym-
pathetic to the suspects.
After Ray was arrested on June 8, 1968,
about two months after King’s assassination
in Memphis, he and Huie collaborated on
Ray’s biography. Huie later wrote an account
of King’s assassination in “He Slew the
Dreamer: My Search, with James Earl Ray,
for the Truth about the Murder of Martin
Luther King,” published in 1970.
In March 1969, as Ray was preparing to
plead guilty, Huie phoned The Huntsville
Times.
“Huie tipped me,” Bell said. “Living in Hart-
selle, we became good friends. His wife said
I was his best friend. I said, ‘I only talked with
him two times a year.’ She said, ‘That’s two
more times than anybody else.’ ”
The story came out in The Times late on
the morning of March 7, 1969. It was stripped
across the top of the afternoon newspaper,
covering eight columns.
“Ray To Plead Guilty Monday, Source
Says”
The story began, “James Earl Ray, accused
of slaying Dr. Martin Luther King in Mem-
phis, Tenn., almost a year ago, will enter a
guilty plea Monday and receive a 99-year sen-
tence, The Times was told today by a source
close to the case.”
The story hit the national news networks
around noon, Bell said. Mutual Radio was the
first to broadcast it, he said.
Reaction to the story was enormous. The
story broke on a Friday, three days before Ray
was scheduled to appear in court in Memphis.
“Revelation by The Huntsville Times that
James Earl Ray apparently intends to plead
guilty tomorrow and accept a 99-year prison
sentence for the slaying of Dr. Martin Luther
King has, as might have been anticipated,
brought vibrations in newsrooms around the
globe,” The Times wrote in an editorial on
March 9, 1969, the day before Ray’s court ap-
pearance.
The editorial ended this way:
“Now, as Americans await developments to-
morrow in criminal court in Memphis, those
with long memories will be asking themselves
this: Is the Martin Luther King murder case
due to become one of a legion of legends on
the mystery-book shelves?”
Later, Bell said, he broke another story
about the King case, this one quoting Macon
Weaver, the United States attorney for the
Northern District of Alabama and former
Madison County district attorney.
Weaver said he believed Ray “was framed,”
as Bell put it. But the story did not receive
much notice.
Even today, though, many still believe Ray
was part of a conspiracy. King’s family believes
there was a conspiracy, too, saying so publicly
before Ray’s death in 1998.
“The Ray story was the biggest story The
Huntsville Times ever broke,” Bell said.
“Newsmen from all over the country were call-
ing the paper.”
Other influential stories: “The River De-
filed,” a six-day series in October 1997 that ex-
amined the health of the Tennessee River.
In March 1998, the series won the Earth
Society Foundation’s first media award.
But perhaps a story with more far-reach-
ing effects was Deborah Storey’s profile of Cor-
rine Kurtz, a local woman who had been in-
fected with AIDS. The story was published
on March 21, 1993, and had tremendous pub-
lic reaction.
“In 1993, a friend shared a story about a
high school friend of ours who got the AIDS
virus from a guy who knew he had it and did-
n’t tell her,” Storey said. “A reasonable person’s
first reaction: What a creep. But as a jour-
nalist, it seemed I could do one better – tell
this cautionary tale so others wouldn’t face
the same tragic fate.”
Kurtz agreed to talk, anonymously at first.
Storey referred to her as “Connie” in the story.
Storey, now The Times’ entertainment ed-
itor, began her story this way:
“Connie recalls every detail of her first dates
with a handsome Huntsville man she met
through mutual friends. He wooed her with
charm, Godiva chocolates and roses, and he
would hang on her every word. She thought
she had found ‘the ultimate gentleman,’ she
says.
“Two years later, the corners of her mouth
curl slightly at that description. Her pace is
steady, her tone even as she continues a chill-
ing story punctuated not with tears but only
with an occasional puff on a slim cigarette.
“The early shock and rage have mellowed
since the day her doctor walked into her ex-
amination room with test results that showed
she was positive for antibodies to the human
immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.
“The doctor was stunned.
“He’s shaking, I’m shaking,” she recalled in
a recent interview with The Huntsville
Times. “He said ‘I am so sorry,’ he just kept
saying over and over, ‘I am so sorry.’
“Connie – who asked that her real name not
be used for her children’s sake – has no ob-
vious hallmarks of what is now full-blown
AIDS. No visible skin cancers, no persistent
cough that might suggest tuberculosis. She
isn’t bedridden, yet moves slowly around her
recently renovated home in an east Huntsville
neighborhood.
“The only visible clue to the disease’s dev-
astation is the frailness of her body. Originally
weighing just 108 pounds, she has struggled
to regain some of the 20 pounds lost during
the early stages of infection.”
One month after the story ran, more than
12 people came forward to say they’d been in-
fected by the same man. Four of them test-
ed positive for the AIDS virus.
Soon, the Madison County District Attor-
ney’s Office got involved. The Alabama Leg-
islature passed a law allowing for prosecution
of someone with HIV who knowingly pass-
es on the disease without informing their sex-
ual partner.
The man accused of infecting Kurtz, a local
lawyer, committed suicide.
“One of my best memories is hearing Cor-
rine talk about gifts she bought for her two
boys, to be given at significant birthdays or
graduations when she was no longer around,”
Storey said.
Storey was at Kurtz’s side when she died
in 1995.
“I was there as the last breath floated from
her frail body,” Storey said. “But that’s not how
I remember her – frail and weak. Hers is a
legacy of strength. I was honored that she let
me tell her amazing story.”

Press
room
manager Our times, our lives» Making headlines in the 1920s Our times, our lives» Making headlines in the 1930s
Stephen
Jolly
‘MOUNTAIN HOTEL’ 1925 - Huntsville’s first traffic lights were installed at the four ‘MAGNIFICENT NEW HOTEL’ ‘WHITESBURG PAVING DEFINITE’ July 9, 1931 - Clement C. Clay Bridge across the Ten-
FEB. 16, 1927 corners of the square and at other downtown intersections. JAN. 2, 1930 OCT. 24, 1939 nessee River was formally dedicated, although it had
It was a grand plan. A group of Huntsville businessmen bought opened in March.
2,200 acres on Monte Sano to promote the sale of summer 1925- Clementine Price was appointed deputy sheriff, the first For a town of about 10,000, as Huntsville was in Whitesburg Drive is still a central thoroughfare in the
1930, the Russel Erskine Hotel was like putting the city. That largely was determined more than 70 years July 17, 1934 - Huntsville’s 4,265 textile workers
homes on the mountain, taking advantage of the completion of female to hold office in Madison County.
Waldorf-Astoria in the Tennessee Valley. The hotel, 12 ago when the Madison County Commission decided walked out after John Dean, representative of the
Monte Sano Boulevard. Included in the plan was Monte Sano
stories and made of marble, brick and concrete, that the portion of the proposed Airline Highway United Textile Workers of America, called for a
Manor, a brick hotel with a golf course and swimming pool. 1926 - The Terry-Hutchens Building, then known as the Ten-
opened on the corner of Clinton Avenue and Spragins (Nashville to Birmingham) that passed through statewide textile strike.
“On the day the contract for the new hotel is let,” The Times re- nessee Valley Banking Building, was completed.
ported, “it is proposed to have a big barbecue, band music, Street on Jan. 3, 1930. The day before it opened, The Huntsville would be Whitesburg Pike. The concrete
People always ask: March 7, 1935 - John Sparkman, later a longtime U.S.
public speaking and other forms of entertainment.” So what 1926 - Huntsville Hospital opened with 50 beds. Three days Times said the public was invited to an open house paving was to stretch all the way south to the Ten-
A roll of newsprint senator, was elected president of the newly organized
happened to such a grand hotel? Well, it was never built. The later, on June 11, the first baby, Israel Bernard “Buddy’’ Miller, from 3 to 5 p.m., followed by a formal ball. “The hotel nessee River.
paper weighs just Chamber of Commerce and Better Business Bureau.
over a ton, would dream dissolved under the weight of the financial collapse of was born. is complete throughout and has many novel and at-
unroll to 11 miles, 1929, which was followed by The Great Depression. Eventually, tractive features, one of which is that it has a radio in MORE LOCAL NEWS IN THE 1930s: March 11, 1937 - Madison County residents approved
and costs about every room, which will add much to the pleasure of legal alcohol sales by 1,000 votes. The city adopted a
the land became part of what is now Monte Sano State Park. 1928 - The first one-hour parking went into effect on down- June 16, 1930 - Monte Sano residents discussed plans
$668. The Times the guests both in the day and at night,’’ The Times 10-page ordinance to regulat e sales of liquor, wine and
uses 8 to 10 a day. town Huntsville streets. to become a city of their own.
MORE LOCAL NEWS IN THE 1920s: said. beer. Surrounding counties stayed dry.
1921 - Huntsville set automobile speed limits at 12 mph. Source: “Eden of the South: A Chronology of Huntsville, Alabama, 1805-2005,’’ edited
by Ranee G. Pruitt.
Feb. 23, 1931 - The last streetcar ran in Huntsville. Source: “Eden of the South: A Chronology of Huntsville, Alabama, 1805-2005,’’ edit-
ed by Ranee G. Pruitt.
H10 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010 H11

THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES

» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES » CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES

Changes over time

March 23, 1910 – 1925 – Pierce December 1928 – Paper begins the move to the new Times building, a 12-story structure 1956 – Paper moves November 1964 – Simms is 1985 – William C. “Bill” March 1994 – McCauley retires. Bob Ward, Sept. 13, 2004 – July 14, 2008
Huntsville Daily reveals plans to in the heart of downtown. To ensure that the Times building is larger than the Russel to new building at 2317 named editor and publisher Green, vice president and managing editor of The Times, becomes After 94 years as a – Kevin
Times publishes its build a new Daily Erskine Hotel and the tallest in town, Pierce builds a penthouse on the top floor. S. Memorial Parkway. after Langhorne’s death. general manager of The editor. daily afternoon Wendt,
first edition in a tin- Times building on Dec. 18, 1928 – Paper prints its first edition on its new Goss press at the new Times Birmingham News, is named May 1994 – Green, 72, dies. Bob Ludwig, newspaper, The assistant
frame building on the corner of building. The paper reports that the “big Goss duplex press” cost in excess of $100,000 publisher as paper celebrates advertising director of The Grand Rapids Press Times becomes a managing
corner of Holmes Holmes and 1958 – its 75th anniversary. morning paper. editor of The
and is capable of printing 25,000 copies per hour. in Michigan, is named publisher.
Avenue and Greene Greene. An early Amis Mercury News
December 1955 retires and September November 1994 – Joe Distelheim, editor of
Street, known then drawing includes June 6, 1931 – The Times goes into the hands of federal receivers. Pierce’s – Paper is sold to in San Jose,
as Metropolitan Pierce’s name Will Mickle 1960 – First The Anniston Star, is named editor. Ward Calif., is
1917 – By start of World company had defaulted on payment of $200,000 in building bonds. S.I. Newhouse, Saturday becomes assistant to the publisher.
Avenue . J. Emory engraved on the becomes named editor.
War I, the paper, needing Oct. 10, 1931 – Pierce loses his paper for good on the steps of the Madison who pays $16.5 edition is
Pierce, 28, is the side of the building. editor.
more floor space, moves County Courthouse. The Times is sold at a public auction to Victor H. Hanson million for The printed.
founder of the paper Langhorne
to a larger building on of The Birmingham News on a bid of $44,350. Among the bidders are Pierce’s Birmingham August 1989 – A $25 million October
and its first editor becomes September 2002 –
Washington Street. A son, William H., and Col. Harry Ayers, publisher of The Anniston Star. News, The expansion brings a new 2007 –
and publisher. publisher. Distelheim retires.
favorite local pastime is Huntsville Times press, a new distribution Gorham
November 1931 – Reese Amis becomes editor, and Jack Langhorne is named January 1961 – Managing Editor
to gather at the new and WHBS-AM, 1966 – Old press is sold. New 96-page Hoe press is installed. A $1.5 center and renovations to retires for
advertising manager. Amis changes the newspaper’s name to The Huntsville Mickle dies. Leroy Melinda Gorham is
Daily Times building to the radio station million expansion – second expansion since the paper moved to the newsroom, advertising medical
Times because it is not a daily newspaper, publishing only six days a week. A. Simms, named editor.
monitor war news on the operated by The South Parkway – increases floor space 70 percent to 36,372 square and circulation offices. reasons.
paper’s bulletin board. Times. managing editor
of The feet. Pat McCauley is named editor. Ludwig
1940 – Idea for a new Times building is broached by briefly also
Victor Hanson, publisher of The Birmingham News. Birmingham News,
becomes editor. acts as
editor.

1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

1931 – Daily 1939 – Circulation 1947 – 1951 – Circulation 1962 – 1972 – Circulation 1985 – Circulation is almost 57,000 daily 1996 – Sunday
circulation is is 8,007. Circulation is 16,120. Circulation is 55,000. and 65,000 on Sundays circulation is about
2,600. is 13,746. is 35,000. 80,000.
Editors
Pierce Amis Mickle Simms McCauley Distelheim Gorham Wendt

Publishers
Pierce Amis Langhorne Simms Green Ludwig

As this array of pictures shows, one thing that changed little from its invention in the alignment inside the machine. When a line of type was finished, a shot of a molten lead and the lines fitted into columns under their headline by men like Leo Burns in the 1952 metal was hot, dangerous but skilled work. In the 1970s, after a nearly 100-year run,
1880s was the typesetting machine, the Linotype. Typing on a keyboard – but with the alloy hit the brass letters and hardened. The brass letters went back into their slots in photo at far right. A copy of each page was made from a papier-mache-like material these machines were gradually replaced and the employees were retrained to use a
keys in a different order than typewriter or computer keyboards – operators typed the the machine and the still-hot metal line of type fell into a stack above the previous line. pressed onto it, and the dried, cardboard-like result was used to make a curved lead computerized photo-typesetting process, which is continually evolving and is today’s
stories as the editors sent them. Each keystroke brought a brass copy off the letter into When the stack reached about two feet in length, the tray of type was carried to a frame alloy casting that would fit on the rollers on the press. Working around pots of molten industry standard. One of these Linotypes is on display at The Huntsville Times.

Stories that changed the times

RAY’S GUILTY PLEA, AIDS VICTIM’S TRAGEDY STAND OUT

By Mike Marshall
Times Staff Writer
mike.marshall@htimes.com
Stories. So many stories in the 100 years
of The Huntsville Times. A handful stand out,
in the estimation of some former longtime ed-
itors.
Perhaps one of the most celebrated stories
in the paper’s history was published in the
spring of 1969. Chris Bell, The Times’ corre-
spondent for Morgan and Limestone coun-
ties, broke the story that James Earl Ray was
about to plead guilty and receive a 99-year
sentence for the assassination of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.
Bell was given a tip by William Bradford
Huie, an author and magazine writer from
Hartselle. Huie was heavily involved in some
of the most notorious cases of the civil rights
era, including the murders of Emmett Till and
three civil rights workers in Philadelphia,
Miss.
Huie practiced what was known as “check-
book journalism.” He believed that paying sus-
pects in civil rights murders was often the only
way to the truth, in part because juries and
judges in the Deep South were usually sym-
pathetic to the suspects.
After Ray was arrested on June 8, 1968,
about two months after King’s assassination
in Memphis, he and Huie collaborated on
Ray’s biography. Huie later wrote an account
of King’s assassination in “He Slew the
Dreamer: My Search, with James Earl Ray,
for the Truth about the Murder of Martin
Luther King,” published in 1970.
In March 1969, as Ray was preparing to
plead guilty, Huie phoned The Huntsville
Times.
“Huie tipped me,” Bell said. “Living in Hart-
selle, we became good friends. His wife said
I was his best friend. I said, ‘I only talked with
him two times a year.’ She said, ‘That’s two
more times than anybody else.’ ”
The story came out in The Times late on
the morning of March 7, 1969. It was stripped
across the top of the afternoon newspaper,
covering eight columns.
“Ray To Plead Guilty Monday, Source
Says”
The story began, “James Earl Ray, accused
of slaying Dr. Martin Luther King in Mem-
phis, Tenn., almost a year ago, will enter a
guilty plea Monday and receive a 99-year sen-
tence, The Times was told today by a source
close to the case.”
The story hit the national news networks
around noon, Bell said. Mutual Radio was the
first to broadcast it, he said.
Reaction to the story was enormous. The
story broke on a Friday, three days before Ray
was scheduled to appear in court in Memphis.
“Revelation by The Huntsville Times that
James Earl Ray apparently intends to plead
guilty tomorrow and accept a 99-year prison
sentence for the slaying of Dr. Martin Luther
King has, as might have been anticipated,
brought vibrations in newsrooms around the
globe,” The Times wrote in an editorial on
March 9, 1969, the day before Ray’s court ap-
pearance.
The editorial ended this way:
“Now, as Americans await developments to-
morrow in criminal court in Memphis, those
with long memories will be asking themselves
this: Is the Martin Luther King murder case
due to become one of a legion of legends on
the mystery-book shelves?”
Later, Bell said, he broke another story
about the King case, this one quoting Macon
Weaver, the United States attorney for the
Northern District of Alabama and former
Madison County district attorney.
Weaver said he believed Ray “was framed,”
as Bell put it. But the story did not receive
much notice.
Even today, though, many still believe Ray
was part of a conspiracy. King’s family believes
there was a conspiracy, too, saying so publicly
before Ray’s death in 1998.
“The Ray story was the biggest story The
Huntsville Times ever broke,” Bell said.
“Newsmen from all over the country were call-
ing the paper.”
Other influential stories: “The River De-
filed,” a six-day series in October 1997 that ex-
amined the health of the Tennessee River.
In March 1998, the series won the Earth
Society Foundation’s first media award.
But perhaps a story with more far-reach-
ing effects was Deborah Storey’s profile of Cor-
rine Kurtz, a local woman who had been in-
fected with AIDS. The story was published
on March 21, 1993, and had tremendous pub-
lic reaction.
“In 1993, a friend shared a story about a
high school friend of ours who got the AIDS
virus from a guy who knew he had it and did-
n’t tell her,” Storey said. “A reasonable person’s
first reaction: What a creep. But as a jour-
nalist, it seemed I could do one better – tell
this cautionary tale so others wouldn’t face
the same tragic fate.”
Kurtz agreed to talk, anonymously at first.
Storey referred to her as “Connie” in the story.
Storey, now The Times’ entertainment ed-
itor, began her story this way:
“Connie recalls every detail of her first dates
with a handsome Huntsville man she met
through mutual friends. He wooed her with
charm, Godiva chocolates and roses, and he
would hang on her every word. She thought
she had found ‘the ultimate gentleman,’ she
says.
“Two years later, the corners of her mouth
curl slightly at that description. Her pace is
steady, her tone even as she continues a chill-
ing story punctuated not with tears but only
with an occasional puff on a slim cigarette.
“The early shock and rage have mellowed
since the day her doctor walked into her ex-
amination room with test results that showed
she was positive for antibodies to the human
immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.
“The doctor was stunned.
“He’s shaking, I’m shaking,” she recalled in
a recent interview with The Huntsville
Times. “He said ‘I am so sorry,’ he just kept
saying over and over, ‘I am so sorry.’
“Connie – who asked that her real name not
be used for her children’s sake – has no ob-
vious hallmarks of what is now full-blown
AIDS. No visible skin cancers, no persistent
cough that might suggest tuberculosis. She
isn’t bedridden, yet moves slowly around her
recently renovated home in an east Huntsville
neighborhood.
“The only visible clue to the disease’s dev-
astation is the frailness of her body. Originally
weighing just 108 pounds, she has struggled
to regain some of the 20 pounds lost during
the early stages of infection.”
One month after the story ran, more than
12 people came forward to say they’d been in-
fected by the same man. Four of them test-
ed positive for the AIDS virus.
Soon, the Madison County District Attor-
ney’s Office got involved. The Alabama Leg-
islature passed a law allowing for prosecution
of someone with HIV who knowingly pass-
es on the disease without informing their sex-
ual partner.
The man accused of infecting Kurtz, a local
lawyer, committed suicide.
“One of my best memories is hearing Cor-
rine talk about gifts she bought for her two
boys, to be given at significant birthdays or
graduations when she was no longer around,”
Storey said.
Storey was at Kurtz’s side when she died
in 1995.
“I was there as the last breath floated from
her frail body,” Storey said. “But that’s not how
I remember her – frail and weak. Hers is a
legacy of strength. I was honored that she let
me tell her amazing story.”

Press
room
manager Our times, our lives» Making headlines in the 1920s Our times, our lives» Making headlines in the 1930s
Stephen
Jolly
‘MOUNTAIN HOTEL’ 1925 - Huntsville’s first traffic lights were installed at the four ‘MAGNIFICENT NEW HOTEL’ ‘WHITESBURG PAVING DEFINITE’ July 9, 1931 - Clement C. Clay Bridge across the Ten-
FEB. 16, 1927 corners of the square and at other downtown intersections. JAN. 2, 1930 OCT. 24, 1939 nessee River was formally dedicated, although it had
It was a grand plan. A group of Huntsville businessmen bought opened in March.
2,200 acres on Monte Sano to promote the sale of summer 1925- Clementine Price was appointed deputy sheriff, the first For a town of about 10,000, as Huntsville was in Whitesburg Drive is still a central thoroughfare in the
1930, the Russel Erskine Hotel was like putting the city. That largely was determined more than 70 years July 17, 1934 - Huntsville’s 4,265 textile workers
homes on the mountain, taking advantage of the completion of female to hold office in Madison County.
Waldorf-Astoria in the Tennessee Valley. The hotel, 12 ago when the Madison County Commission decided walked out after John Dean, representative of the
Monte Sano Boulevard. Included in the plan was Monte Sano
stories and made of marble, brick and concrete, that the portion of the proposed Airline Highway United Textile Workers of America, called for a
Manor, a brick hotel with a golf course and swimming pool. 1926 - The Terry-Hutchens Building, then known as the Ten-
opened on the corner of Clinton Avenue and Spragins (Nashville to Birmingham) that passed through statewide textile strike.
“On the day the contract for the new hotel is let,” The Times re- nessee Valley Banking Building, was completed.
ported, “it is proposed to have a big barbecue, band music, Street on Jan. 3, 1930. The day before it opened, The Huntsville would be Whitesburg Pike. The concrete
People always ask: March 7, 1935 - John Sparkman, later a longtime U.S.
public speaking and other forms of entertainment.” So what 1926 - Huntsville Hospital opened with 50 beds. Three days Times said the public was invited to an open house paving was to stretch all the way south to the Ten-
A roll of newsprint senator, was elected president of the newly organized
happened to such a grand hotel? Well, it was never built. The later, on June 11, the first baby, Israel Bernard “Buddy’’ Miller, from 3 to 5 p.m., followed by a formal ball. “The hotel nessee River.
paper weighs just Chamber of Commerce and Better Business Bureau.
over a ton, would dream dissolved under the weight of the financial collapse of was born. is complete throughout and has many novel and at-
unroll to 11 miles, 1929, which was followed by The Great Depression. Eventually, tractive features, one of which is that it has a radio in MORE LOCAL NEWS IN THE 1930s: March 11, 1937 - Madison County residents approved
and costs about every room, which will add much to the pleasure of legal alcohol sales by 1,000 votes. The city adopted a
the land became part of what is now Monte Sano State Park. 1928 - The first one-hour parking went into effect on down- June 16, 1930 - Monte Sano residents discussed plans
$668. The Times the guests both in the day and at night,’’ The Times 10-page ordinance to regulat e sales of liquor, wine and
uses 8 to 10 a day. town Huntsville streets. to become a city of their own.
MORE LOCAL NEWS IN THE 1920s: said. beer. Surrounding counties stayed dry.
1921 - Huntsville set automobile speed limits at 12 mph. Source: “Eden of the South: A Chronology of Huntsville, Alabama, 1805-2005,’’ edited
by Ranee G. Pruitt.
Feb. 23, 1931 - The last streetcar ran in Huntsville. Source: “Eden of the South: A Chronology of Huntsville, Alabama, 1805-2005,’’ edit-
ed by Ranee G. Pruitt.
H12 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010

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H14 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010
THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES
» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES
WORTH 1,000 WORDS
Getting your picture taken for the paper is a major event for most people. But most
are not posed. A single photo can tell as much as a long story. It fixes an event in
time and memory, making it a permanent part of our lives.
Jubilant Huntsville citizens carry Dr. Wernher von
Braun to the speaker’s podium during a July 1969
celebration to mark the safe splashdown of Apollo 11,
the world’s first journey to the moon.
Our times, our lives» Making headlines in the 1940s
‘HUNTSVILLE GIVEN $41,293,000
CHEMICAL WAR SERVICE PLANT’
JULY 3, 1941
This is the beginning of what is now Redstone Arsenal.
As a comparison, that initial investment would be more
than $525 million in today's dollars – an amount larg-
er than the $500 million price tag for the Boeing rock-
et-parts plant in Decatur and the $300 million cost for
the Mercedes-Benz assembly plant in Vance. Not a bad
investment, though. Currently, there are more than
32,000 employees on the arsenal, not to mention thou-
sands of others in the Huntsville-Madison County area
who are Redstone supported.
‘FORT BLISS, TEXAS, ROCKET OFFICE
TO BE MOVED TO REDSTONE ARSENAL’
NOVEMBER 4, 1949
Eventually, Huntsville became Rocket City, USA, home
President Dwight D. Eisenhower , left, and Gov. John
Patterson chat upon the president’s arrival at the old
airport in Huntsville in September 1960.
of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. That’s making
a long story incredibly short, but among the “100 Ger-
man Scientists” mentioned in a smaller headline was Dr.
Wernher von Braun, generally regarded as the father of
the U.S. space program. Von Braun’s vision and knack
for attracting top talent to work with him put Huntsville
at the center of the race to the moon.
OTHER LOCAL NEWS IN THE 1940s
Dec. 6, 1940 – U.S. Rep. John Sparkman wired
Huntsville authorities that the building of a new airport
had been approved as a defense project. Purchase of land
would be the only local expense, he said.
Dec. 18, 1941 – Almost two weeks after Pearl Harbor,
the Big Spring was fenced in as a precaution to safeguard
against sabotage of the city water supply. A guard was
Our partnership
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The Huntsville Times
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Thank You For Your Support!
0000150296-01
President John F. Kennedy, right, talks with Gen.
Francis McMorrow, first commander of the U.S. Army
Missile Command, during the president’s visit to
Redstone Arsenal in May 1963.
on duty 24 hours a day.
Nov. 6, 1945 – More than 1,000 people stood in line for
hours to purchase shotgun shells at Hutchens Hardware
on Jefferson Street for duck season. Shells had been ra-
tioned during the war.
June 28, 1946 – The first beer license since the 1941 pro-
hibition was issued to the Blue Room in the Russel Er-
skine Hotel.
Oct. 31, 1948 – Construction was scheduled for the
Whitesburg Drive-In Theater. Cost for the drive-in, which
had a 50-foot screen and was capable of accommodat-
ing 400 cars, was expected to be $100,000.
Source: “Eden of the South: A Chronology of Huntsville, Alabama, 1805-
2005,’’edited by Ranee G. Pruitt.
Congratulations
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 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010 H15

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H16 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010

THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES

» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES

CENTURY-PLUS OF LEGENDS
By Mike Marshall
Times Staff Writer
mike.marshall@htimes.com
List the names of the oldest businesses in
Huntsville. Together, they form a roster of
Huntsville legends.
Laughlin-Service Funeral Home, G.W.
Jones and Sons Consulting Engineers, H.C.
Blake Co., The Hutchens Co., Harrison
Brothers Hardware and W.L. Halsey Grocery.
Each of them at least 110 years old – even
older than The Huntsville Times. Each of
them part of the 100 years of The Times, ei-
ther as advertisers or story subjects.
There is a story that Thomas Hutchens
wants to tell about The Hutchens Co., found-
ed by W.T. Hutchens, his great-grandfather.
Recently, he began working on an obitu-
ary index project in the Heritage Room of the
In 1956, when
The Times moved
into its current build-
ing, a .22 rifle was
$16, the Dow topped
at 521.05, a Coke
was still 5¢ and the
average worker
made $4,445 a
year.
Huntsville-Madison County Public Library.
Hutchens has been a library assistant for 20
years.
In doing his research, Hutchens came
across a major story about The Hutchens Co.
– a hardware, plumbing, building supply and
heating company.
The story ran on the front page of The
Times on March 31, 1927, as The Times Build-
ing was being built on the corner of Holmes
and Greene streets.
The headline read, “HUTCHENS GETS
BIGGEST JOB OF PLUMBING HERE.”
“The plumbing, heating and wiring in the
handsome office building being erected for
The Daily Times on Metropolitan (now
Greene) and Holmes streets goes to The
Hutchens Company of this city on a combined
bid of $49,987,” the first paragraph read.
It was the largest contract in the history
of the city, according to The Times.
“The plumbing and heating part is twice
as large as any contract of its kind ever let,”
the story said. “The total is announced as larg-
er than any combined heating, plumbing and
wiring job ever employed in this section of
the state.”
Total worth of the contract was just less
than $55,000, The Times said.
In the paper’s 100 years, The Hutchens Co.
has made frequent appearances. Thomas
Hutchens said his family has “used The Times
a lot for advertising.”
“Every few, they did advertising for vari-
A newspaper ad from the 1940s hangs
at Laughlin-Service Funeral Home.
ous things – sporting goods, John Deere trac-
tors, a wide range of advertising,” he said.
The Hutchens Co. was founded in 1886,
making it one of the city’s six oldest busi-
nesses, by most accounts.
Laughlin-Service Funeral Home, founded
in 1868, is believed to be the oldest. W.L.
Halsey Grocery and Harrison Brothers were
founded in 1879, and H.C. Blake was found-
ed in 1884. G.W. Jones and Sons was also
founded in 1886.
Walk into virtually any of these business-
es today, and there’s a framed copy of a story
or advertisement from The Times.
At Laughlin, there’s an advertisement
from the 1940s. “Serving you and yours since
1868,” reads the top of the ad.
At G.W. Jones, there’s a recent story about
the Jonses’ family and farming history in
Huntsville. At H.C. Blake, an old newspaper
story was unearthed as the company prepared
for its 125th anniversary celebration.
Around 1890, The Huntsville Gazette, fore-
runner of The Times, published a story about
the first Blakes in Huntsville and their busi-
ness ventures.
Of J.W. Blake, son of the company’s
founder, the newspaper said: “He is a man
of congenial nature, always ready to assist a
friend, possesses a happy and engaging per-
sonality and has not an enemy on earth. His
heart is free and many a pretty girl in this city
has cast longing glances in his direction.”
Twenty years after that story on J.W. Blake,
The Huntsville Times was founded. Ulti-
mately, the paper grew so much that it moved
once, then again.
When The Times moved to 2317 S. Memo-
rial Parkway, its current location, the paper
gave a nod to the community’s longtime mer-
chants – businesses such as H.C. Blake, The
Hutchens Co., Laughlin-Service Funeral
Home, G.W. Jones, Harrison Brothers Hard-
ware and W.L. Halsey Grocery.
“Our new, modern building will permit The
Times to serve this city and its surrounding
area more effectively, as well as more rapid-
ly,” the paper wrote in a Jan. 22, 1956, edi-
torial. “Into it have been plowed back the
earnings of a quarter-century. The people, the
merchants, the businessmen of the commu-
nity have built it.”

Our times, our lives» Making headlines in the 1950s

‘CITIZENSHIP GRANTED TO 109’
APRIL 14, 1955
A crowd of more than 1,000 packed Huntsville High
School’s auditorium as 109 persons – mostly Germans
who moved to North Alabama as part of the rocket
program at Redstone Arsenal – became U.S. citizens. A
front-page photograph showed Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger
and Dr. Wernher von Braun, head of the German rock-
et team, waiting for the ceremony to begin. There also
were stories about the biggest medical advancement of
the decade – the Salk anti-polio vaccine.
‘JUPITER-C PUTS UP MOON’
FEBRUARY 1, 1958
In 1958, there was no Saturday edition of The
Huntsville Times. So when a Huntsville-made Jupiter-
C rocket put the first U.S. satellite – Explorer – into
space on a Friday night, Publisher J.M. Langhorne or-
dered an Extra edition. It told about the satellite itself
– less than three feet long and 18.13 pounds. It also
told about the spontaneous celebration at the Madison
County Courthouse Square. The celebration included
burning in effigy former Secretary of Defense Charles
E. Wilson, who was held responsible for slowing the
Army missile team’s program. And the crowd engaged
in some impromptu chants before “dissipating into
‘War Eagle’ cheers.”
MORE LOCAL NEWS FROM THE 1950s:
Sept. 4, 1951 – The new S.R. Butler High School
opened with an enrollment of 548. It was formerly
known as West Huntsville High.
1952 – Non-segregation instituted at Redstone Arse-
nal. All “White” and “Negro” signs were removed.
Dec. 1, 1955 – The 121⁄2-mile Memorial Parkway
opened to traffic with no formal ceremony. Construct-
ed by Ashburn and Gray over a three-year period, it
cost more than $2 million.
March 14, 1957 – Thousands saw the opening of Park-
way Center, the new shopping center that had 25
stores and 425 employees.
Feb. 22, 1959 - Groundbreaking for the city’s first TV
station - WAFG-TV - is held. It would later become
UHF Channel 31.
Source: “Eden of the South, A Chronology of Huntsville, Alabama, 1805-
2005,” edited by Ranee G. Pruitt.

0000150295-01
The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010 H17

0000149739-01
H18 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010

THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES

» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES

A DAY AT THE TIMES

How do all the stories, photos and ads come together every day? How do we decide what
goes on the front page? Here’s how it all happens, from the time al.com is updated first
thing in the morning to the time the paper hits your doorstep at night.
Early morning
8 a.m.
8 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Times reporter Victoria Cumbow posts an early

story on al.com. All al.com news is contributed by The Times lobby opens, and employees receive
Early assignments are made: Times city editor
The Times and by sister papers in Birmingham and display and classified ads and help subscribers.
Shelly Haskins, left, talks with special projects
Mobile. Stories are added throughout the day and Here, classified ad representative Marcey Brown
editor Challen Stephens.
night. takes an ad from Mike Land.

Selling ads
10 a.m.

Huntsville Times Account Executive Greg

Making decisions: Times editors and reporters meet to
discuss prospective stories. Another meeting is held at
3:30 p.m., when it’s decided what will be on the front page
and other pages.
Jackson works with advertising client Maurice
Gant with the Center for Hearing.
Throughout the day and into the evening, the ads
that come in are created to customer specifications
or converted for press production. Here, D. Kean, left
and Aaron Markwell work on ads.

4 p.m.-11:30 p.m.

Also throughout the day and night, reporters are

talking with people about stories or covering
events. Patricia McCarter interviews Gunner Wallis,
a volunteer at the American Red Cross, for one of
her Good Person stories, which appear Saturdays.
Editors then go over the stories with the reporters.
Many other staff members don’t get onto the
streets, instead assembling calendars, birth and
death notices, business items and all the massive
amount of information that appears in every daily
paper and online.
The Editorial Board meets as needed with public figures,
such as Sen. Richard Shelby, center. The board is made
up of the publisher, editor, managing editor and the
editorial page editor, and during most visits, reporters
will sit in on the meetings. After these meetings, the
newspaper’s editorial position is decided.
After the decisions are made about which stories go on
the front page and which don’t, page designers such as
Lyn McDaniel arrange the finished stories on
computerized pages. The ads have already been
positioned on these pages. Copy editors check the
stories one final time and write the headlines. Finally,
they read proofs of the pages.

Midnight
Pages are
completed
throughout the
afternoon and
evening, with a
deadline of 11:30
p.m. Etched
photographically
onto thin metal
plates, the pages
are put on the
press and the
massive two-
story machine When the news designers get done with the pages,
rumbles into they are sent to workers in the backshop – such as
operation. Matt Reasons, left, and Wes Weimer – who look them
over, make sure all the ads are correct, check for color
quality and then print out the “negatives,” which are
then turned into metal plates that run on the presses.

Midnight - 5 a.m.
12:15 p.m. With a delivery target
In a building full of 5 a.m., carriers –
of complicated who operate as
machines, the independent
inserter is among contractors – load up
the most bundles of papers and
intricate. It opens head out. For 32 years
each copy of the Pete Jean has backed
paper and inserts his vehicle up to the
advertising loading dock at The
supplements – Huntsville Times to
often a dozen or gather up his bundles
more for of papers for his
Sundays. delivery route.

Our times, our lives»
Making headlines in the 1960s
‘STATE BARS NEGROES
ELSEWHERE, HUNTSVILLE
QUIETLY INTEGRATES’
SEPTEMBER 9, 1963
For the second day, state troopers in
Tuskegee, Mobile and Birmingham blocked
the entrances so black students could not
attend all-white schools. They acted on or-
ders from Gov. George C. Wallace, but the
orders - unlike three days earlier - did not
mention Huntsville. A different scenario
played out here. Police Chief Chris Spurlock
made sure of it. First, Sonnie Hereford IV,
6, enrolled at Fifth Avenue Elementary
School. Then David Brewton, 7, entered East
Clinton Elementary School. Next, Veroni-
ca Pearson, 13, joined the student body at
Rison School. Finally, David Piggee regis-
Our times, our lives»
Making headlines in the 1970s
‘FLASH FLOODS HIT CITY
AFTER 6-INCH RAIN’
MARCH 16, 1973
When you look at the pictures, it is amaz-
ing that no one died in the floods that
turned Huntsville into a lake. It is also
amazing that there was a newspaper to
record the flood. The paper that day was
printed in blue ink. The flood filled the
basement of The Times building, where
the main ink storage and pumps are lo-
cated. But the blue ink and color pumps
in the upper parts of the press room were
operational.
‘TORNADO TOLL MOUNTS;
AREA IS DECLARED
DISASTER’
APRIL 5, 1974
The initial toll looked like this: 14 dead Jan. 23, 1976 - The City Council approved
in Madison County and more than 200 Sunday liquor sales.
injured. At least 14 were dead and another
Source: “Eden of the South: A Chronology of Huntsville,
dozen missing in Limestone County. The
storm system spawned tornadoes in 10 Alabama, 1805-2005,’’ edited by Ranee G. Pruitt
Huntsville
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The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010 H19
THE TIMES OF OUR LIVES
» CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE TIMES
tered at Terry Heights Elementary School. police officer - Robert Carl Bailey, 27 – and
The day was virtually without incident. to remove the signs for black and white
drinking fountains at the courthouse.
OTHER NEWS IN THE 1960s:
May 18, 1963 - President Kennedy gave
Sept. 8, 1960 - President Eisenhower vis- a five-minute speech at Redstone Arsenal
ited Huntsville to dedicate Marshall Space to a crowd of about 10,000.
Flight Center.
March 1966 - The Mall, the largest en-
Jan. 4, 1962 - Sit-ins were conducted by closed shopping complex in Alabama,
local black students after blacks were re- opened on the corner of University Drive
fused service at W.T. Grant, Walgreens, and North Parkway.
Woolworth and the Sears coffee shop.
Oct. 29, 1967 - The Huntsville-Madison
1963 - Huntsville designated over 3,000 County Jetport, also known as Carl T. Jones
acres near Redstone Arsenal as a research Field, opened and the old Huntsville air-
park. port on Airport Road closed.
May 16, 1963 - The Huntsville City Coun- Source: “Eden of the South: A Chronology of Huntsville,
cil voted unanimously to hire its first black Alabama, 1805-2005,” edited by Ranee G. Pruitt.
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Nov. 6, 1970 - Sheralee Hoelscher of
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Aug. 20, 1972 - Johnson High School, the
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H20 The Huntsville Times, Sunday, March 21, 2010

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