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Have we built the Model City? (1971-Present)
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THE ANNIVERSARY PROJECT: SECTION 31971-present, New South and transition
Sunday, August 10, 2008◆
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CONTRIBUTORS
BEN CUNNINGHAM, METRO EDITOR
MODEL SPORTSMANSHIPRooting for the home team — from dugout
to end zone, in victory and defeat.
PAGE 4Ben Cunningham enjoys pulling
for the Gamecocks of his alma mater, Jacksonville State University.
JOHN FLEMING, EDITORATLARGE
HILL POLITICSAnniston’s politics differ from
other regions in Alabama.
PAGE 20John Fleming is an Alabama native who con-
siders politics one of his favorite contact sports.
THE PROJECT
INSIDE▶ HISTORY QUIZ PAGE 8 ◆ TIMELINE ACROSS PAGE TOPS
JULY 271870s/1880s-1928, founding to year before Great Depression
AUG. 31929-1970, Depression through World War II,
Cold War and Civil Rights era
TODAY1971-present, New South
and transition
AUG. 17 The future◆
AUG. 18 Then and Now — a photo album
A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
In a 1984 Sports Illustrated profile of a successful football coach from a small Mis-sissippi town, Frank DeFord noted, “A foot-
ball coach could be a gigantic personage in that sort of place.”
In his time and place, E.D. “Chink” Lott fit that bill. He was an over-sized force in the lives of Anniston and its football players in the 1930s and 1940s. His success is rec-ognized by athletic halls of fame representing the Alabama high schools,
Birmingham-Southern College and Calhoun County. His exploits are compiled in a locally produced book available at the public library.
Lott is famous for the thing that stirs up many Southern towns. It drives passions. It concentrates populations on Friday nights to one small patch of grass. It brands small chil-dren and old people around a set of colors, a fight song, a cheer, a varsity sweater passed down over generations. It fosters commu-nity. It enforces the Southern oral tradition as stories of glory are passed down.
And, as DeFord correctly noted, it makes legends out of men who can distill success out of a recipe of hard work, force of person-ality, talent and inspiration.
E.D. Lott did that for Anniston.In 1930, he accepted the head coaching
job at Anniston, a program accustomed to success. His first season was marked by three losses, including a seven-touchdown rout at the hands of rival Gadsden High. The 1931 AHS yearbook, The Hourglass, generously sums up the year, “Coach Lott had many unfortunate breaks with his team, but he met them with a smile.”
According to local legend, Lott did any-thing but smile when contemplating the Gadsden defeat.
He swore revenge.He put to use the same mettle that a mere
three years earlier at Birmingham-South-ern College led him to stardom in football, basketball, baseball and track. For the rest of his time in Anniston, Lott never again lost to Gadsden. Nor did he lose to AHS’s other rivals, Talladega and Oxford.
With each successful defense of civic pride, Lott’s stature grew.
The 1938 Hourglass boasted that Lott “has come to be recognized as one of the smartest and most competent coaches in the state.”
Lott’s 14 seasons of Anniston High foot-
ball produced a 91-22-11 record.And then came a split with school admin-
istrators, apparently over money.Lott left Anniston in the middle of World
War II, preferring to head to the other side of the state and go into business.
But the coach didn’t stay away from foot-ball. Lott coached 11 seasons in Demopolis, compiling an equally impressive record at the west Alabama city’s high school.
He died in 1970. A few years later, some of his former AHS players successfully cam-paigned to add Lott’s name to Anniston’s stadium, making it Chink Lott Memorial Stadium.
In today’s edition of The Anniversary Project, Ben Cunningham looks closely at Anniston’s relationship with sports.
“Against their municipal rivals for resi-dents, industry, investment and visitors, they sought to prove their worth not only in business deals and censuses, but on fields of play,” Cunningham writes of Anniston’s city fathers in a story beginning on Page 4.
Anniston’s investment in Lott paid mul-tiple dividends. The coach gave the city what so many pine for, success on the field of competition. In exchange, his name sits on a place of high honor for a Southern town, the high school football stadium.
Bob Davis is editor of The Anniston Star. Contact him at 256-235-3540 or [email protected].
BobDavisEditor
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSEDITORS
Bob Davis, Anthony Cook, Bill Edwards, Phillip Tutor
and Laura Tutor
DESIGNERTosha Jupiter
COVER PHOTOGRAPHERBill Wilson
PROFILE WRITERDan Whisenhunt
MULTIMEDIAJustin Thurman, Gary Lewis, Brandon Wynn, Andy Johns
and Hannah Dame
MANY THANKS TO ...Teresa Kiser and the
Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
MULTIMEDIA: www.annistonstar.com/celebrate125
ANNISTON’S ATTICResidents share memories
about the town we call home.
LANDMARK LOREPhillip Tutor and Andy Johns dodge traffic,
trek through vacant lots and hang from buildings, all in the name of showing the history, quirks and
warts associated with Anniston’s landmarks and inconspicuous-but-important spots.
Click on the interactive map to watch video history lessons.
A place of honor for a legendary coach
LAURA TUTOR, FEATURES EDITOR
LEGACY OF LEARNINGA cerebral aerial view of Anniston’s
educational landscape and how it’s changed.
PAGE 16Laura Tutor has been with The Star
for 14 years, covering everything from health to religion.
THE BOYS OF SUMMER,AND A FALL
CROWD WATCHING A GAME AT JOHNSTON FIELDPublic Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
Oct. 31-Nov. 1, 1971Shootings, fi rebombings and a law-enforcement
cordon around 39 blocks in south Anniston mark the public climax of discontent stemming from the previ-ous week of racial unrest at Wellborn High School.
July 11, 1972On a Tuesday evening the fi rst production of the
Alabama Shakespeare Festival, A Comedy of Errors, is staged in the auditorium of the old
Anniston High School.
Dec. 16, 1975McWhorter and Co. win bid to build a new home
on McClellan Boulevard for the Anniston Museum of Natural History — its name since November,
replacing the old Regar Museum.
1971 1975
In its early days, the Model City’s eye was drawn to diamonds, the sort with dirt and bases, and nine men who would stitch ‘Anniston’ on their jersey, to play baseball on a patch of earth.
BY BEN CUNNINGHAM
Anniston’s founders were proud of the town they’d planned, from the locations of its industries, down to the very neighborhoods that would be home to the workers who labored in those facto-ries. Churches, shops and transportation all were accounted for.
That planning, as well as the pride of the new city’s founders, is evident in the drawings pro-duced in the late 1800s and early 1900s – in fact, angled-perspective maps – depicting its layout. Detailed renderings of Victorian-era buildings lining tree-shaded streets, all for the inspection of readers.
In the drawings, smoke wafts from stacks above the many mills and foundries that were the reason for the town’s existence, surely meant to imply industriousness to future investors. Likewise, tidy rows of houses dot the side streets, sensible homes in which the factories’ workers would rest. The commercial corridor centered on Noble Street looks sturdy and ready for the bustle of workers spending their wages for life’s necessities and nice-ties.
The city’s name is displayed, in large, stylized letters below each map, always in all capitals.
“ANNISTON, ALA.,” the drawings seem to say, is
someplace. And in this someplace, there’s a lot of money to be made, whether you’re investing for it or working for it.
Conspicuously absent from all the drawings however, is any depiction of the places where many Annistonians came to express pride in their city, spots where they gathered to prove that the Model City was the equal, if not the better, of any other town within a few days’ ride.
In any modern map of a major American city, fields of play figure large on the landscape. They are surrounded by swells of seats, often covered by
Please see PAGE 5
Feb. 19, 1978The showcase exhibit of the Anniston Museum of Natural History, the Werner-Regar collection of
mounted birds — which had marked the museum's genesis in Anniston — reopens to the public.
1978
cathedral-like domes. Banners hang from rafters or wave from poles, and on game days thousands of people will fill their stands, clad in shirts, caps and the occasional coat of face paint embla-zoned with sigils of their cities — not unlike the all-capitals logo beneath the drawings of Annis-ton’s industrial streets.
The Anniston maps were drawn in a time before the civic arms race to construct these arenas had begun, and so it is perhaps not sur-prising that neither Zinn Park nor Johnston Field are represented there, no pennants billowing in the breeze that carries the factories’ smoke. The Anniston Nobles, the Model City’s first profes-sional baseball club, were organized Feb. 28, 1904, a year after the production of the last of those maps, becoming members of the new Ten-nessee-Alabama League, pitting the finest play-ers the city could marshal against squads from Chattanooga, Huntsville, Sheffield, Bessemer, Selma and Gadsden.
Cities and towns in that era, even smaller ones it would seem, were no different than the metropolises of the 21st century. Against their municipal rivals for residents, industry, invest-ment and visitors, they sought to prove their worth not only in business deals and censuses, but on fields of play. If a collection of pros could be gathered to sport “Anniston” on their jerseys, if the city’s name could appear in the league standings in places older, bigger, better known, then folks in those cities would know Anniston was here, could not deny the Model City was a force to be reckoned with. Through the years, Anniston has tried to make its mark on the dia-mond and on the gridiron, as underdog contend-ers, reigning champions and gracious hosts, even as the world of sport changed around it.
IN TROUBLE EARLYIf the entry of the Nobles into the Tennessee-
Alabama league doesn’t serve as enough evi-dence to history that Anniston had arrived, per-haps the appearance of baseball royalty on the team’s first roster does the trick. Ty Cobb began his professional career playing on the squad, which batted, fielded and pitched at Zinn Park. Unfortunately, they didn’t do it long. The team folded in its first season.
Zinn, it should be noted, was just steps away from Anniston’s main rail depot, the impres-sive Anniston Inn, and the Anniston Land Co. building. These structures, collectively known as the “Gateway to Anniston,” were designed to impress arriving visitors. By 1911, baseball and the crowds it drew to Zinn were among the sights to behold. Anniston’s population had topped 12,000 in the previous year’s census, the beginning of a steady climb that would last for decades. Its mills were turning out iron and cot-ton products, providing jobs that were drawing those residents. And the fortunes of the Models,
formed to play in the new Southeastern League, drew many of those residents to the park.
But the Models’ success was short-lived; the team folded the next year. They were replaced by the Moulders in 1913, who lasted five years, and a new incarnation of the Nobles in 1928, who now played at Johnston Field on the other side of town from old Zinn Park.
By 1930, the new Nobles were battling teams from Huntsville, and the nearby Georgia towns of Cedartown and Lindale. Anniston was the largest of these cities (Huntsville would not sur-pass it until the 1950s, booming when the space program landed in town), and residents of the Model City might have been looking elsewhere to find its peers. As the beginning of the Great Depression helped to make the economics of baseball nearly impossible here, 1930 was the last Annistonians would see of professional ball for seven years.
A TEAM OF THEIR OWNBut Anniston was too proud to stay off the
field for long. In 1937, local businessmen helped to organize the Rams, members of a new South-eastern League, an association that found Annis-ton in much more prestigious company, as cities are concerned.
Anniston could count itself, on the diamond at least, the rival of Alabama’s capital, Mont-
gomery, as well as Mobile and Jackson, Miss., cities with more than 60,000 residents. Meridian, Miss., and Pensacola, Fla., occupied a second tier, both with around 35,000 souls. Rounding out the league were Gadsden and Selma, which, like Anniston, were upstarts with populations around 20,000.
With the Rams’ first game just over a month away, the city got a chance to prove how much it valued the opportunity to field a team. A fire burned Johnston Field’s wooden grandstands, and the city government provided labor from the jail to build replacement seats.
As the Rams prepared to take the field for their first game in April 1938, against Gadsden, their growing city’s sense of itself was apparent in The Anniston Star’s coverage of the time. The weight happenings there carried throughout Calhoun County and beyond could be seen by the decisions of merchants in other towns to shut down for opening day so everyone could attend the game.
The day before the game, the papers lead editorial declared: “Never before has such ready cooperation been given by other Calhoun Coun-ty communities in a local project.
“Oxford, Jacksonville, Piedmont, and Fort McClellan are observing a half holiday for the
Please see PAGE 6
Continued from page 4
April 13, 1978Anniston is named an All-America City by the National Municipal League in New York. The Model City
passes muster with the jury through its unique characteristics and the presentation delivered by enthusias-tic Annistonians. Impressing the evaluators were the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the racially progres-
sive Committee Of Unifi ed Leadership and the relations between Anniston and the military community.
THE ANNISTON RAMS, 1939Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
May 28, 1978A special section of The Star com-
memorates the selection of Anniston as an All-America city; a parade Sept.
27 marks it in small-town style.
April 22, 1979The Ritz Theater, an entertainment
center in the heart of Anniston for 61 years, rolls its last fi lm.
occasion. Each of these places can send hun-dreds of fans into Anniston for the inaugural. Hundreds of others will come from other com-munities in this trade territory—Heflin, Friend-ship, White Plains, Choccolocco, Lineville, Ash-land and other communities.
A Page 1 story printed the morning of the game provides other clues to its importance.
“Mayor Coleman is expected to toss the open-ing ball. There will be no great formality attached to the opening. Where other cities, including Gadsden have arranged parades and other furbe-lows, local officials have been of the opinion that the baseball fan wants to hear the crack of the bat and see the game.”
Anniston was conscious of its moment in the spotlight and sensitive to any criticism it wasn’t putting on a big enough show.
The Anniston High School band provided music for the afternoon crowd, marching along the third-base line.
Unfortunately, rain ruined the scheduled show after just a half-inning, scattering a crowd estimated at 3,000. Two days later the Rams finally got a chance to impress the home crowd, beating Gadsden 5-3 in front of 1,178 fans.
OUTTA HEREOver the next 12 years, the Rams’ on-field for-
tunes fell and rose, then fell again. They’d been middle-of-the-pack at best before the league was suspended for World War II in 1943. When play resumed in 1946 Anniston’s team took the only league title it would ever win, beating Montgom-ery four games to two.
Sadly, it was then back to the basement for most of the rest of the team’s time. By 1949, with expenses for travel and equipment rising and tickets not selling fast enough to cover them, the Rams had reached a crisis. Sensing the city’s reputation was on the line, fans — who’d stepped in once before when things got rough in 1941 — organized a plan to sell shares in the enter-prise, raising both money and the public’s sense of commitment to its team.
It worked, at first. Anniston was able to get a team together to
start the 1950 season. The Southeastern League had changed a bit — Mobile, its biggest town in 1940, had since departed for the nearly big-time Southern League to play against the likes of Birmingham and Atlanta. The Port City, which had grown to a population of nearly 130,000, was replaced by Vicksburg, Miss., a town slightly smaller than Anniston. And the Rams were strug-gling to keep up — on the field and in the ledger books — against teams from Gadsden and Selma.
As the summer heated up, it became clear that Anniston couldn’t continue without major changes.
A June 27 story in The Star provided advance notice of a June 30 meeting of the Rams’ stock-
holders at the city auditorium.“The situation has become critical,” the paper
quoted team president Joe King III as saying, “and the directors feel that the right to a decision on the future of the Southeastern League fran-chise belongs to the stockholders.”
The stock was in a group known officially as Anniston Baseball Fans Inc. A large ad on Page 13 of the paper that Friday, the day of the meeting, aimed to ensure no one missed the gathering. Those who couldn’t attend were urged to obtain proxy voting forms in advance.
An editorial the same day urged action by the city government to help save the team.
It noted that “… this year’s Ram aggregation was fielded as a civic project, and to give up at this point would be a reflection on this entire community.”
The editorial proposed spending city money to support the team, or at least providing in-kind services in the form of no-cost police protection at games, or even perhaps a break on the city’s amusement tax.
That The Star’s editorial board urged city lead-ers to consider spending public money to prop up a minor league baseball team is a fact not to be taken lightly, given that it appears on the same page with another editorial assailing the “reck-less spending” by the administration of Gov. Jim Folsom.
The editorial said city leaders “… would be jus-tified in coming to the Rams’ aid on this score, as well as for the less tangible benefits to be derived through the showing that Anniston can field a ball club in competition with others representing cities the size of Montgomery and Pensacola.”
In the federal census taken that summer, Montgomery had grown to 99,860 residents, and Pensacola claimed 43,509. Anniston weighed in at 31,066.
There, spelled out, was Anniston’s desire to promote its legitimacy as a noteworthy city through athletic exploits.
The meeting was held, and “several hundred” stockholders were enthusiastic in their commit-ment to keeping the team alive for at least anoth-er two weeks through the sale of $10,000 worth of special “booster tickets.” But only $370 of that goal materialized in the first night, according to Star sports columnist Harry Sherman. Writing in the Sunday’s paper following the meeting, he noted that a Saturday game with Gadsden wasn’t nearly as well attended at the stockholders’ meet-ing.
“Although the series opener with Gadsden produced one of the best played games of the year, the small crowd consisted mostly of Gads-den patriots. The group of stockholders who were so enthusiastic at Friday’s baseball rally here failed to turn out in a body,” Sherman wrote.
Two weeks later, the Rams’ reprieve was up, and the team’s franchise reverted to the league, which operated them as an “orphan” squad, playing just two more games at Johnston Field a
few days later before playing only on the road the remainder of the season.
They dropped both final home contests to Selma’s Cloverleafs, 4-1 and 8-0.
TURKEY TOWNIn 1948, as the Rams were nearing their
eventual end, Johnston Field’s neighbor across 18th Street to the north, Memorial Stadium (not yet “Chink” Lott Stadium) became home to Anniston’s next big sporting enterprise. Anniston might not claim a team of its own stars for much longer, but it would at least play host to someone else’s.
The Anniston Quarterback Club was promot-ing a grid iron contest between the freshman football teams of the University of Alabama and the University of Kentucky. It was hoped the game between future varsity stars for the Crimson Tide and the Wildcats would draw a big crowd of locals, and perhaps some visitors. The contest was planned for 2 o’clock on the after-noon of Thanksgiving Day, the week after the local high school football teams had concluded their seasons and presumably after local families had stuffed themselves at the holiday feast.
Again, The Star heralded the approach of a big game. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, a sports story noted, “Freshmen in the Southeastern Con-ference are allowed to play only three games each season (a special ruling allows Alabama to play four this year); therefore the highly interesting frosh tilts are especially hard to obtain.” All pro-ceeds from the game would benefit construction of a new YMCA headquarters for the city.
Again the Anniston High band was called on to enhance the occasion, representing Alabama’s squad. The Oxford High School band was asked to play for the Wildcats. Both bands, the Tuesday story said, would present programs with “appro-priate Thanksgiving themes” at halftime.
As it would with the Rams, The Star’s edito-rial board weighed in on the “Turkey Day” game. After commending the Quarterback Club embers on their efforts, the editorial board held out hope that the impending game would be the first in an annual tradition.
“Other cities comparable in size to our own, by playing host annually to college football classics, and near-classics, reap rich dividends through the promotion locally of sportsmanship and interest in football, through the valuable public-ity resulting from an outstanding sports program, and, finally, through the attraction of football crowds to their stores, restaurants, etc., each Fall.”
A story in Thursday’s paper, hyping the con-test further, noted that “Some of the best pros-pects in the nation last season were brought into the Wildcat den through the well-known recruit-ing ability of Head Coach ‘Bear’ Bryant.” He wouldn’t coach the Crimson Tide for another 10
Please see PAGE 7
1978 1984Continued from page 5
Jan. 26, 1984William Shakespeare was named The Anniston Star’s “Citizen of the Year”
for work that, around 375 years after he fi rst created it, had brought joy and economic benefi t to a small city of the New World. By this point,
however, the festival’s future lay in Montgomery.
Feb. 9, 1987An afternoon fi re swiftly destroys the Kaplan Block of historic buildings on the east side of Noble Street
between Eighth and Ninth streets.
1986 1987
MEMORIAL STADIUM,ANNISTON VS. BESSEMER
Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
Aug. 29, 1986The connection between western Anniston and Quintard became easier with the opening of a
mile-and-a-half stretch of highway, a four-laned 202. It was the most expensive highway ever in Calhoun County, but worth it for employees of Monsanto and Bynum, who saw the toughest part
of their commute cut from 10 minutes to two.
years, but his name was already worth men-tioning in The Star’s story.
The game would be carried live on local radio, according to listings, and businesses across town bought ads in a two-page spread Wednesday to promote the game. “Let’s fill Memorial Stadium tomorrow,” George H. Butler & Co. Insurance urged.
And indeed, what was described as a “near-capacity crowd” is shown filling the stands in the paper printed the Saturday after the game. The closest thing to Anniston had to a home team prevailed, with Alabama besting Kentucky’s freshmen 16-6.
But, perhaps because the freshman games were indeed hard to come by, Annis-ton’s first was also its last.
After a two-year hiatus, the Turkey Bowl, as it became known, became a county high school championship bowl game of sorts. For the first few years, Anniston was the permanent host team, squaring off against
the Calhoun County with the best record other than its own. Of six Turkey Bowl games it played in, Anniston’s Bulldogs were unbeaten. The Model City had finally found a workable formula to draw a big crowd to a marquee game on a downtown field — if only for one afternoon a year.
Eventually, Anniston gave up its guaran-teed slot in the game, but Memorial Stadium played host to the county’s two best teams annually until the introduction of a statewide classification and playoff system took some of the polish off the ball.
Now, the Bulldogs are still the only team to wear “Anniston” on their chests, and “Chink” Lott Stadium still fills with their sup-porters a few Fridays each year, with the roar of Turkey Bowl crowds fading into the past, and the Rams, Moulders and Nobles distant, dim memories.
Anniston’s population peaked at 33,320 in 1960, a decade after the Rams left John-ston Field for good and while the Turkey Bowl was rumbling toward its demise. The
factories in those Victorian drawings are mostly gone now, with no more smoke waft-ing from stacks scattered over the western side of town. Anniston may maintain some of the old pride that led early leaders to print they city’s name in bold capitals wherever they could. But today’s leaders are wonder-ing how to deal with population totals that drift lower each decade instead of marching steadily up.
Meanwhile, the city’s name may no lon-ger appear in datelines and league standings tables on the sports pages of newspapers in the South’s modest metropolises. But Anniston seems content to have traded in its upward mobility in the world of sports for heated tilts against teams from the towns next door.
And if it is no longer importing paid pro-fessionals or scholarshipped collegians to play for the fans’ amusement, the athletes it cheers on are mostly its own children. That, perhaps, may be the sort of pride Anniston can maintain for generations to come. ◆
Continued from page 6
Aug. 31, 1987Anniston Middle School, a controversial undertaking as Anniston City Schools grappled with the effects of integration and a desire for educational equity,
fi nally opens. Enrollment was expected to be 1,050.
1987
1. Year base-closing commissioned voted to close Fort McClellan:
(a.) 1989(b.) 1990(c.) 1995
2. In March 1993 this unusual weather event came to town:
(a.) A hail storm that lasted more than 30 min-utes.
(b.) A blizzard that left more than a foot of snow(c.) A rainbow that seemingly stretched from
Coldwater Mountain to Mount Cheaha.
3. Which of these was not an Anniston private school in the late 1800s/early 1900s:
(a.) The Noble Institute (b.) Alabama Military Institute(c.) McClellan Academy
4. In 1911, school board member Alfred L. Tyler offered this as reward for the best student essay:
(a.) $10 in gold
(b.) Right to have name on school building(c.) Suit of clothes
5. Anniston City Schools unveiled this new concept in 1970:
(a.) Co-ed PE classes(b.) Wall-less classroom spaces(c.) Computer-assisted teaching
6. Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s first pro-duction in Anniston:
(a.) A Comedy of Errors(b.) As You Like It(c.) Henry V
7. In 1989, Anniston High won the state cham-pionship in this sport:
(a.) Softball(b.) Wrestling(c.) Football
8. City that lured Alabama Shakespeare Festi-val away from Anniston in the early 1980s:
(a.) Mobile(b.) Montgomery(c.) Florence
9. The mascot of Anniston’s first professional baseball team:
(a.) The Rams(b.) The Hot Blasters(c.) The Nobles
10. In the late 1940s Anniston established this annual football contest, first between college teams and eventually among top high school squads:
(a.) The Gravy Bowl(b ) The Model Bowl(c.) The Turkey Bowl
QUIZ
Test your knowledge of Anniston’s history.
ANSWERS ON PAGE 10
Feb. 26, 1987Audrey Marie Frazier Hilley, 50, con artist and convicted murderer (1983) who had been declared
a fugitive Feb. 22 while on a weekend furlough here from Tutwiler Prison, is found barely a mile from the Blue Mountain mill house in which she was born. Weakened by hypothermia — she had apparently been
crawling around in the woods — she dies of a heart attack in the back of an ambulance.
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Dec. 1, 1989Anniston High School’s Bulldogs take their best re-
cord ever to the Class 6A football championship and defeat Murphy of Mobile 12-6 at Legion Field. Oxford
wins the class 5A championship that same night.
Jan. 26, 1990As the Cold War faded to black, Fort McClellan
is listed as a base that could be closed as a cost-saving measure.
July 30, 1991A vote of the U.S. House of Representatives affi rms
an independent commission's recommendation to take Fort McClellan off of a list of military bases
proposed for closure.
1989 1991YOU OUGHT’VE KNOWN ...
Asa “Ace” Carter was a Calhoun County native, a segregationist and speech writer for Gov. George Wallace.
But the man asso-ciated with Wallace’s infamous “segrega-tion forever” speech was reborn as a best-selling author. Carter wrote The Education of Little Tree under the pen name Forrest Carter.
The book, which tells the touching story of an orphaned boy who goes to live with Cherokee grandparents in Tennessee, shot to No. 1 on the New York Times non-fiction paperback bestseller list in the 1990s.
The unmasking of its author led fans of the book to wonder how they could be duped by a man with such a dubious past.
In 1979, Carter was reportedly working on a sequel when he died in Abilene, Texas, at age 53.
Though the author’s confidants denied he was Wallace’s former speechwriter, his body was buried in a DeArmanville Cemetery under the name Asa Carter.
Carter was born in 1925 and became a radio announcer and political activist who founded Birmingham’s Eastern Section Citizens Council in the 1950s, a pro-segregationist group.
By 1970, Wallace and Carter had a falling out, reportedly because he found Wallace too conciliatory toward
blacks. Carter ran for governor and promoted a “free enterprise” school system that would accept students of any race, except blacks.
He lost.After the loss, Carter disappeared.
Rumors circulated that he authored the novel Gone to Texas, which was turned into the Clint Eastwood movie The Out-law Josie Wales.
The author denied he was Asa, even though the copyright application listed the same Oxford address Asa Carter used in the early 1970s.
“How can a person (like Asa Carter) write Little Tree?” Carter’s editor once told Newsweek. “Come on. That kind of honesty and truth? Could that come from a bigot?”
Wallace speech writer lived double lifeBY DAN WHISENHUNT
Public Library of Annistonand Calhoun County
CARTER
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March 12-13, 1993A blizzard buries Anniston with 12-18 inches of snow — probably the worst snow storm since Feb. 15, 1898. Noble Street looks like an Arctic tundra and thousands
were without electricity. Oxford radio station WVOK remained on the air the entire period, its young DJ Chris Wright helping hold the community together.
April 7, 1993Polychlorinated biphenyls — PCBs — are discovered by Alabama Power workers on a routine inspection of air, water and soil at a substation near
Alabama 202 on land the company acquired from Monsanto in 1961.
1993
File/Bill Wilson/The Anniston Star
▼
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June 23, 1995The Base Realignment and Closure Commission, endorsing a Defense Department recommendation, votes unanimously to close Fort McClellan,
except for the land and facilities necessary to support a small Army Reserve component. The Chemical School and the Military Police School were moved to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. "TAPS FOR FORT" was the huge block-letter headline on Page 1 of The Star. (Ironically, the original Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood
thought Camp McClellan was a fi ne facility, having authorized it in May 1917 to be a mobilization point for the World War.)
1995
File/Bill Wilson/The Anniston Star
▼
FINAL FLAG FOLDING AT FORT McCLELLAN,SEPT. 30, 1999
501 Davis Loop • Oxford(256) 831-3995
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LEGACY OF LEARNING
The Anniston
Star
August 10, 2008
Celebrating
Anniston's
125th year
17The Anniston
Star
August 10, 2008
Celebrating
Anniston's
125th year
16
Anniston’s city fathers placed a premium on ‘education’ for all, teaching the offspring of the well-heeled as well as the working man.
The result was a bountiful garden of top-notch schooling choices. Sadly, in recent decades many of the blooms have fallen from the roses.
BY LAURA TUTOR
A PLAY AT NOBLE INSTITUTE FOR GIRLSAll photos courtesy/Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
By 9:30, the lights were ready to go up on the evening production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The cast had been working for weeks on the show’s premier that Friday night in April of 1910.
The house was packed. As the program notes emphasized, an appreciation of the arts and culture was a grand part of education and not to be taken lightly in the early 1900s or glossed over in favor of harder, grittier subjects in the curriculum.
The costumes had come all the way from Philadelphia, but they were far from being the only imported players that night at the Noble Institute for Girls. Indeed, the school on Anniston’s eastern side had been drawing students from all over the region for decades.
It, along with a host of other private academies, colleges and schools, laid the foundation of Annis-ton’s early educational system. By the middle of the 20th century, Samuel Noble and Daniel Tyler’s proj-ect of urban incubation had staked its claim as a city that educated not only its residents, but those from other locales, as well.
Private boarding and day schools served the range of children who grew up playing and explor-ing Anniston’s hills. Academies such as Barber Memorial Seminary served black children, the heirs to a rising black middle class in the post-Reconstruction South. Study the yearbooks at the other girls’ schools — such as The Noble Institute — and you’ll see a list of names that have seasoned Alabama politics for as long as there’s been an Ala-bama.
Others, such as Alabama Military Institute, catered to young men whose families expected a military touch and a focus on science, and it was this command to improve science and technol-ogy instruction that marked the mission to teach Anniston’s boys.
The city’s educational heritage wasn’t confined
only to those who could afford to pay upward of $6 a month in tuition that some private schools charged in the late 1800s. Given Tyler and Noble’s respect for education, the city leaders had decided by Septem-ber 1883 to establish three public schools. The plan was to have a school for white boys, one for white girls and a separate school for black children.
The governing board would follow that plan up two years later with a tax to fund the schools — practically unheard of in the South at the time. Eventually the schools became so successful, par-ents in areas just outside the city limits would try to finagle a way to gain entrance for their children.
The board members’ names can still be seen throughout the city: Wikle, Johnston, Goodwin, Randolph and Foster. Their determination, accord-ing to meeting minutes, was that children shouldn’t be deterred from learning simply because their fam-ilies were not as wealthy as others. The city needed them, and it needed them educated, if it was going to succeed.
They, who sent their children to the academies and private schools but built the framework for pub-lic ones, decided that education was too important an investment for a fledgling city to ignore. A cen-tury and a quarter later, the legacy of learning isn’t so crystallized.
DREAMS AND EXPECTATIONS An illustration of the girls of the 1920s comes to
life in a Noble Institute yearbook. One classmate closed the year out by recounting her dream of what her classmates would be. Florence Wilson pretend-ed to see them years down the road, long after 1920 and their senior graduation. Time had taken them far from Anniston and the school that had molded them for much of their young lives.
Her dream, written in the school yearbook, cap-
tured the lives they’d hoped for so many years ago.One was a missionary in China, while another
spread a different kind of message — as a suffrage worker trying to gain women the right to vote. Their faces were as clear in Wilson’s dream as were their personalities, from the farmer’s wife to the settle-ment worker to the world traveler.
Time slips past, but the legacy of their shared his-tory cannot be left behind.
Florence Wilson graduated from The Noble Insti-tute in the midsummer of 1920. The school started by Anniston founder Sam Noble and completed in 1889 as a boarding and day school for girls was one of a handful of educational options that set Annis-ton apart from other cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The teachers were from around the world — London for music, Paris for French. Students came from as far away as Florida to take their place in Anniston’s academies.
The schools’ rolls read a bit like a society list from the post-Reconstruction South. Scan the let-ters of appreciation from parents, and the names of judges, governors and businessmen pop from the faded pages. However, as the girls point out in their own words, there are simpler ambitions for the young women who received their formal education in the shadows of Anniston’s iron mountains: They wanted to learn and, in turn, contribute to their community.
It wasn’t just Anniston’s private academies that were known in the South for their programs. The city’s public system was once regarded as among the best in the state. A Jacksonville State University graduate student, Catherine Whitehead, wrote a history of the first 50 years of the Anniston City Board of Education. Among the observations from the early years is the fact that Anniston once had a history of supplying the state Department of Educa-
tion with its administrators, officers and innovators.“It was a tremendous system to be a part of,”
recalls Estelle Robertson, who retired from Annis-ton’s Tenth Street Elementary as principal in 1987 and then spent five more years supervising student teachers from JSU. “And at one time, anybody from Anniston High School could go anywhere. We sent students to West Point, to Annapolis, to Georgia Tech — wherever they wanted.”
Margarette Longstreth tells a similar story of her students’ ambitions. They were across town, on the west side, at Cobb High School and Junior High, which was closed when the city built the current Anniston Middle School. Longstreth taught eighth-grade social studies and still sees her students around town.
“I’ve always had that love of children and a love of learning,” says Longstreth, who retired in 1992 and remembers Cobb fondly. “There was no fool-ishness, and there were very high expectations of what the children could learn and do.”
Former teachers, those whose careers stretch back as far as Robertson’s and Longstreth’s, remem-ber when the city’s requirements for teachers rivaled those of private academies. The curriculum — and incentives for students to succeed — were equally matched.
Whitehead’s study from JSU emphasized the city’s drive for teacher recruitment, including a note in 1911 that said no teacher would be hired unless he or she had a minimum of one year’s experience. A year earlier, board member Alfred L. Tyler had announced he’d pay $10 in gold for the best student essay. That would be about $220 in gold today. Fur-ther incentive came in 1915 when the board mem-bers set up a scholarship for the best speller, and four years after that, it was mandatory for students
GRADUATING CLASS, NOBLE INSTITUTE FOR
GIRLS, 1890s
MEMBERS OF COBB HIGH GRADUATING
CLASS
Please see PAGE 19
Sept. 10, 1998The Department of Defense declares that the
Fort McClellan Development Joint Powers Authority would be in charge of the former post's
development for civilian use.
Sept. 30, 1999Fort McClellan, whose roots had entwined through Anniston's for literally a century, is an active post for the last time today.
Oct. 5, 1999President Clinton signs legislation that, in essence,
gave Fort McClellan back to civilians — the JPA — at no charge. "Fort McClellan is fi nally signed,
sealed and delivered," says Congressman Bob Riley.
1998 1999
XXXXXXXX
STUDENTS OF THE NOBLE INSTITUTE FOR GIRLSPublic Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
Jan. 7, 2002In a Gadsden courtroom presided over by Calhoun County Circuit Judge Joel Laird, jury selection fi nally begins in the 1996 case of state plaintiffs seeking damages from Monsanto and associated companies for illnesses and environmental damages related
to the long-halted manufacture of PCBs. Anniston attorney Donald Stewart represented more than 3,000 plaintiffs in Abernathy v. Monsanto.
2002
to take classes in public speaking.During the summers in the early 1900s, city
school buildings were turned over to the facto-ries, which would hire teachers to educate their workers on their off days.
By 1934, the city became one of the first public systems to have a program to keep delinquent children in school. When the city established a class for the mentally handicapped in the 1955-56 school year, it was just as revolutionary in public education.
A study of the board’s history shows that money and teacher recruitment have long been issues that warred with those expectations for excellence. For instance, in 1912, the board decided the city could set up an electricity con-tract with Alabama Power, providing the bill didn’t exceed $250 a year. To keep the cost down, no light bulb could be higher than 40 watts. Another entry points to a move then-Mayor W.S. Coleman made in 1934 to keep the schools open when systems all over the country were collaps-ing in the Depression.
The minutes, and accompanying newspa-per clippings, reveal the image of town that had married itself to its school system and was deter-mined to see that union thrive.
As the school system flourished, more and more of the city’s elite bought into the idea that the schools they were funding were ideal for their own children. The academy and private school culture started to wither in Anniston, and would fade almost completely by World War II. It would stay dormant until the 1990s, when home school-ing and private enrollment began increasing at a
rate eclipsed only by the sheer numbers of fami-lies who left the city for other school districts.
THE LAST 50 YEARSThe teachers who remember Anniston’s
heyday, and whose children graduated from the public system or who had grandparents attend the academies, say they aren’t sure when the foundation shifted. Part of the attrition from the system may be to the rise in home-schooling and religious schools. Enrollment flight — and the reason the system has foundered — is harder to pin down.
Pointing only to integration is too simplistic, according to folks like Longstreth and many Cobb graduates, who’ve expressed their support for the neighborhood school through the years. After all, when students attended all-black schools within the city, those students were held to high standards. Therefore, simply saying that having a “black” school equals a poor-performing school isn’t acceptable — or accurate.
Mac Gillam remembers when the majority of Anniston’s children used public schools, and most went to Anniston High. As integration came, the city allowed students to choose to attend Anniston High.
“We had some black students, and they were there because they wanted them to be there or their parents wanted them to be there,” says Gil-lam, who taught at Anniston High in 1968-69 and at Johnston Junior High in 1970. There was a minimum amount of racial issues, and teach-ers, black and white, were really instrumental in making the transition as smooth as possible, he added.
“It was still the primary educational institution
for the citizens of Anniston.”After leaving Johnston, Gillam got his doctor-
ate from Florida State University and then taught at JSU for 30 years. Looking back, he feels some remorse for how the system has fared. It’s a feel-ing echoed by many others who spent their time teaching Anniston’s children and now worry about their future.
“Teachers were free to do what they thought best,” says Anne Phillips, who started teaching in 1960 and retired in 1997. She attended as a student every school she’d later teach at: Noble Street and Quintard elementary schools, John-ston and Anniston High. “Today they spend so much time proving that they’ve taught some-thing, they don’t have time to actually teach something.”
She, like Longstreth, remembers the power of the neighborhood school and wonders if there’s something that can be done to return that sense of ownership. “There’s not that sense of commu-nity,” she says.
Robertson says she remains optimistic that the city’s system can emerge and become a destina-tion district. The former science teacher has been involved in the Next Start program and the Annis-ton City Schools Foundation and says that only a good system, with equal cooperation between the council, the board and the parents, will produce a system that other, new parents will buy in to.
“Somehow — and I don’t have the answer to that — we’ve got to have a better image. And only a good school system will bring them back,” says Robertson, who had three children graduate from Anniston High and go on to careers in education. “I’ve always been hopeful.” ◆
Continued from page 17
ANNISTON HIGH SCHOOL, 16th AND LEIGHTON All photos courtesy/Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
2003
HILL POLITICSThe politics of Anniston and its surroundings is different from other regions of Alabama.
One observer cites people and the power of ideas as the prime motivator for public policy.
BY JOHN FLEMING
In northeast Alabama’s hard-scrabble fields of the late 1800s, the small landowner, the yeo-man, tilled mostly for himself, quite different from the landed of the Black Belt and the owners of the rolling farmlands of the Wiregrass.
Alabama’s expert on the times and Anniston native, former Auburn history professor Wayne Flynt, points out in his book Poor But Proud, that Calhoun County didn’t pin its livelihood on cot-ton, but was instead a classic mixed economy. The small holders grew corn and wheat and raised livestock. And while plantations flour-ished down in some of the valleys, the hills were full of what he calls “Jacksonian farmers,” a pop-ulist allusion to the one-mule homesteader.
In that way, at least, Anniston and north-eastern part of the state is not like the rest of Alabama and certainly not like the stereotypical image of the Deep South.
The yeoman farmer didn’t own slaves. Spanish moss doesn’t sway from live oaks in front of grand plantations. That’s not northeast Alabama’s culture. Motivation for war — the one Between the States — for most of the people of this region, was therefore different from the cot-ton farmers of lower Alabama.
A lack of enthusiasm for war, brought on by the burdens by an economic reality and work ethic that dictated you pick your own corn, did not, however, keep Calhoun County from vot-ing to secede — the northernmost county in the state to do so.
Those kinds of conflicts, with ourselves and with each other, are part of our definition.
But the region is defined by something more prosaic, more abstract. It does not stand at any major crossroads, geographically or historically. It does not naturally and easily project influence because of what we have been through or where we sit on the map.
Instead, as former U.S. Rep. Glen Browder argues, the region asserted itself through indi-viduals and institutions contributing to the flow of ideas. Those ideas shaped public policy and challenged the state, the nation and the estab-lishment to think about the future in a way that has brought about mostly good, but sometimes bad, wholesale change.
SHAPING A CITY Even in the beginning, there was the power of
the individual.Samuel Noble helped shed the darkness of
Reconstruction.Outside the Model City, the small land-hold-
ers were scattered across the countryside like chicken feed. In town, the city of the coming century chiseled out of nothing in an unremark-able place, was ground zero of a brave experi-ment in industrialization birthed with Yankee money and Southern ingenuity.
Anniston’s foundries and the muscle of up-and-coming Birmingham worked like coke and iron ore to bring about a steely power in north Alabama that, in time, fell into league with the traditional Big Mules across the center and the south.
The new money begat influence that made
it so, but the raw power in the late 19th century also began to coalesce around a magical notion that people mattered.
Travel to the basement of the Calhoun Coun-ty Courthouse and see testament to this awaken-ing. Here are rivals to The Daily Hot Blast, the unapologetically partisan sheets dedicated to the cause of what can generally be called the Populist and Progressive movements.
In the pages of The Alabama Leader, The Peo-ple’s Journal, The Argus and others can be found the fumes and rants aimed at the establishment.
The bankers, the Big Mules, the industrial-ists were in alliance to keep the little man down, and perhaps the only way out, proclaimed these broadsheets and some electrifying orators of the day, was for blacks and poor whites to work together to climb out of that miserable ditch together.
It was to be a short-lived period. Nationally the movement began to fade near the turn of the 20th century.
In Alabama, it came to a screeching halt in 1901, upon the adoption of the new state consti-tution.
Sadly, Calhoun County has some solid own-ership to this travesty through the actions of the constitutional convention’s president, Anniston railroad attorney John B. Knox. With a crafty and determined way, Knox engineered the approval of a document that disenfranchised blacks and poor whites and continues to cripple the state to this day.
PARTY IN POWER
The new century brought with it a continua-tion of the dominance of the Democratic Party in the South, especially after the demise of the Pop-ulists. Virtually every officeholder from county sheriff to U.S. senator was a Democrat, and it was to stay that way for decades.
One of them was the only governor to come from Anniston, Thomas Kilby, who served from
Please see PAGE 21
JOHN B. KNOXPublic Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
July 26, 2003A late-night fi re breaks out on the 10th fl oor of the AmSouth building at 10th and Noble. The water needed to extinguish the fi erce blaze forces about 15
businesses out of the 76-year-old structure, which eventually became vacant. It awaits redevelopment with a new name — Watermark Tower.
Aug. 9, 2003The fi rst of the thousands of M55 rockets fi lled with GB nerve agent built
at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in the 1950s is destroyed at Anniston’s incinerator on a Saturday morning in a process the Army project manager called fl awless.
2003
Aug. 20, 2003Joint settlement is reached in the federal and state court cases — Tolbert v. Monsanto and Abernathy v. Monsanto, respectively —
that were seeking damages due to PCBs contamination. Attorneys agreed that $700 million would resolve the complaints of more than 20,000 individuals, clean up contaminated land, establish health programs and pay the lawyers. For several years afterward, controversy,
confusion and anger simmered among some plaintiffs over how cash and other benefi ts were distributed.
1919-1923. (B.B. Comer, who served as governor from 1907-1911, lived in Anniston in the 1880s when he was in the grocery business, but moved to Birmingham soon afterward.)
On the surface, Gov. Kilby’s wrong priorities appeared askew. He entered office a staunch pro-ponent of prohibition and helped secure its rati-fication, but he was a fence-sitter when it came to suffrage.
Dig a little deeper, though, and you begin to see something else. Indeed, Wayne Flynt puts him squarely in the Progressive tradition.
Kilby reformed the state budgetary process, endorsed and fought for a graduated income tax and a tax on coal mining, instituted public educa-tion reforms and changes in the state prison sys-tem, got the Legislature to pass a workers’ com-pensation act, secured pensions for Confederate soldiers, increased funding for child welfare and tried, but did not succeed, to abolish the convict lease system in the state.
He also failed to win a U.S. senate seat in 1926, when he lost in the Democratic primary (the only election that mattered then) to Hugo Black.
His gubernatorial campaign manager was the owner of The Anniston Star at the time, Col. Harry M. Ayers, an influential man heading an influential institution. He made his presence
known in many ways. As for public office, he served on the state School Board for nearly 25 years.
The only U.S. senator in modern times to come from Calhoun County was Anniston attor-ney Donald Stewart, who served from 1978 to 1981.
Stewart, like many other successful politicians in the state, first emerged on the political scene at the University of Alabama. During his presidency of the Student Government Association, Stewart worked to keep the peace during integration of black students to campus in 1963.
Thirteen years later, in 1976, Cleo Thomas would become the University of Alabama’s first black SGA president. The Anniston High School graduate went on to become a lawyer. He nar-rowly lost a state Senate contest to Del Marsh in 1998.
A number of institutional leaders who argu-ably had national impact during the civil rights movement were the Revs. N.Q. Reynolds, William McClain and Phil Noble Sr. They were supported by a city administration led by Anniston Mayor Claude Dear and helped to fend off violence at a crucial moment during the movement. John Net-tles, who later helped organize an area chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was also instrumental in the movement.
Earlier in the 20th century Charles R. Bell, the
pastor at Parker Memorial, was arguably one of the most liberal church leaders of his time and a champion of the social gospel. He voted for Nor-man Thomas, the Socialist candidate for presi-dent every term from the 1920s to the ’40s. He was also ardently opposed to war, speaking out against the nation’s involvement in World War II.
Of course the county has had many other influential politicians, including Jim Campbell, a former state legislator, and Doug Ghee, for-mer state senator. J.J. Willett was the long time influential chair of Democratic Party in Calhoun County.
In other parts of the state, the politics tend to be more predictable than they are here. In Annis-ton and the surrounding area things are slightly more complex. It isn’t just any community, after all, that can produce both a committed socialist and committed right-wing conservatives.
Seeming contradictions, of course, but they make sense when you understand that the inner and outer social, cultural and political struggles marking the area’s history and geography.
Not everyone, remember, wanted to secede from the Union on the eve of the Civil War. But, then again, just barely enough voted yes for the measure to pass.
It seems, in some ways, the region has been conflicted ever since. ◆
Continued from page 20
ABOVE: GOV. T.E. KILBY TOP RIGHT AND FAMILY AT HOME, 1921Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
The former clerk of the circuit court of Calhoun County, Lamar Jeffers, was appointed to fill the term of Blackmon after he died.
Kenneth Roberts of Piedmont, who served from 1951 to 1965. During his career, he was a proponent of federal highway safety and air pollution regula-tions. In 1954 he was wounded in the leg when a group of Puerto Rican nation-alists opened fire on House members from an observa-tion deck inside the Capitol building.
Anniston’s Arthur Glenn Andrews finally broke the Democrats’ long hold on power in the district. In 1964, Andrews rode to office on a wave of support during Barry Goldwater’s failed bid for president.
Bill Nichols unseated Andrews two years later. Nichols became one of Alabama’s most influential leaders. He died in 1988.
Glen Browder, currently a profes-sor at Jacksonville State and the naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, Calif., replaced Nichols. Browder, a member of the House Armed Ser-vices Committee, became an expert on military affairs. He vacated his seat in 1996 in an unsuc-cessful bid for the Senate.
Clay County’s Bob Riley replaced Browder, serving until he ran for gov-ernor in 2002.
Calhoun County attorney Mike Rogers succeeded Riley. Rogers, too, has been very active in military issues, serving on both the Armed Services Committee and the Committee on Homeland Security. He also sits on the House Agricultural Committee.
HILL POLITICS
Who’s who in Calhoun County’s political historyThe men from Calhoun County who served in the U.S. House early in the 1900s were all
Democrats. For most of that time the current 3rd congressional district was known as the 4th. They included:
Sydney Johnston Bowie, an Anniston attorney first elected in 1901. He served four terms before retiring
from the House for private legal practice in 1907.
Fred L. Blackmon, also of Anniston, was elected to Congress in 1911 and served
until he died in office in 1921.
DonohoThe
D I F F E R E N C EAcademicsThe class of 2008 received more than $2.6 million in college scholarship offers and were offered acceptance to more than thirty-five colleges and universities.
ArtsThe fine arts play an important role in the life of The Donoho School. Self expression and experi-ences in both the visual and performing arts are placed among the top priorities at the school.
AthleticsStudents enjoy participating in a variety of sports offered at The Donoho School: football, basketball, volleyball, golf, soccer, tennis, track, cross-country, baseball, and cheerleading. The Donoho School was selected by The Birmingham News to receive the 2007 AHSAA IA All Sports Championship Award.
The Donoho School is dually accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and the Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS). It is an active member of the National Association of
Independent Schools and the Alabama Association of Independent Schools.
The Donoho School is located inAnniston, AL at 2501 Henry Road.
For more information, please contact Director of Admissions Sue Canter at (256) 236-4459, or visit our website at www.donohoschool.com.
the difference is...
Come Worship With Us!W. Mack Amis, Jr., D.Min.
Pastor
SundaysMorning Worship 8:30 AM
Sunday School 9:30 AM
Morning Worship 10:45 AM
Discipleship Groups 5:00 PM
Evening Worship 6:00 PM
WednesdaysChildren’s Awana 5:30 PM
Adult Bible Study 6:00 PM
Youth “Buzz” 6:00 PM
Seeking to provide a place where... the Love of God is shared. the Word of God is taught. the Power of God is revealed. the Plan of God is fulfilled.
Touching Our Community
with theLove of Jesus
and a Message of Hope
Intercessory Prayer Ministry24-hour Prayer Line
256-236-1515
Sunday TelecastsCable 2: Sunday School 10:15 AMCable 2: Live Broadcast 10:50 AMCable 9: Week Delay 11:00 AM
HILL POLITICS
Who’s who in political history: Just outside Calhoun County
Just outside Calhoun County one can find a number of Alabamians of towering political influence.
There was also Con-gressman Bill Nichols of Sylacauga. Nichols was in many ways a bread and butter politician who made it his business to deliver the goods to the district. He excelled, especially at defense matters serving on the House Armed Services Committee and heading up the Investigations subcom-mittee.
Nichols, who lost a leg in a land mine explosion in World War II in Europe, was a fervent pro-ponent of the expansion of the Pentagon and increased military spending especial-ly during the Reagan years. He later used
his powerful position on the Armed Services Committee to bring about reform in the military and to ferret out wasteful spending.
Perhaps his greatest legacy was in 1986 when he co-sponsored, with Berry Goldwater, a bill that essentially restructured the American military.
“Bill Nichols,” says former U.S. Rep. Glen
Browder, “was the driving force behind the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Goldwater lent his power and influence to it, but Nichols was the one who got it passed.”
The most obvious, of course, is Hugo Black, of Ashland, who was appointed by President Roosevelt to the Supreme Court in 1937. During his time on the court, he came to be one of the most influential legal thinkers in American history. He resigned in 1971, just days before he died.
Of course, the state’s current governor, Bob Riley, is also a native of Clay County. He was swept into power during the Gingrich revolution’s heyday in 1996. In Congress, he was allied with the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Since he left Congress in 2002 to run for governor, he has adapted a much more pragmatic approach to politics and has been known as an effective, progressive executive.
ANNISTON FIREPLACE & PATIO3815 Leatherwood Plaza, Hwy. 431
(256) 236-1114
Mon. - Fri. 8-5; Sat. [email protected] • [email protected]
AERIAL VIEW OF BARBER MEMORIAL SEMINARYPublic Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
301 East 18th Street • Anniston, AL (256) 235-8900 • www.SMHhealth.com
CONGRATULATIONSto the City of Anniston for 125 years of growth
from Stringfellow Memorial HospitalWhere Everyone Comes 1st
For the past 70 years, Stringfellow Memorial Hospital has been a vital part of the progress and growth of the city
of Anniston. Beginning as a small tuberculosis hospital in 1938, we have grown into a fully accredited general acute care facility, compassionately serving the healthcare needs of our community.
We are still building and growing to better serve you.
We are proud of the part Stringfellow Memorial Hospital plays in serving the residents of our community and join with the citizens of Anniston in the celebration of 125 years.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Sunday, August 3, 2008
CELEBRATING 125 YEARS: THE ANNIVERSARY PROJECTJULY 27
1870s/1880s-1928, founding to year before Great Depression
AUG. 31929-1970, Depression through World War II,
Cold War and Civil Rights era
AUG. 101971-present, New South
and transition
AUG. 17 The future◆
AUG. 18 Then and Now — a photo album
Give yourself, or someone you love, an anniversary present.
Special Offer
The 125th Anniversary PackageDon’t miss the opportunity to receive all five sections
packaged together in one commemorative bundle. Available Aug. 18 for $7. Mailed copies are $10.
To request copies of any of the anniversary sections, please contact The Star’s Circulation Department.
235-9253 or 1-866-814-9253
1
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A BALLET PERFORMANCE AT THE NOBLE INSTITUTE FOR GIRLS
Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
Paid for by Committee to Elect Dawson PO Box 1163 Anniston, AL 36202
A Native Annistonian...David was born and raised in Anniston. He graduated from Wellborn High School and went on to pursue degrees from JSU and UAB. David and his wife, Carol, have two daughters; Taylor and Sarah. David is a member of Anniston Pathology.
Extensive Community Involvement...- Planning Commission, Chairman 24 years- Calhoun County Coroner’s Office- Founding Member of the Berman Trust Foundation- South Trust/Wachovia Bank Board of Directors- Member of Parker Memorial Church
Positive Ideas...- Respect for and use of proper political decorum among council persons, mayor and staff- Capitalize on the positives; work to minimize the negatives- Encourage trust among racial lines- Quarterly Citizen Ward meetings and listening sessions- Strengthen downtown business core while developing McClellan, the Eastern Parkway and South Quintard- Be aggressive with business tax abatements, and in-kind assistance from the City; Provide incentives when possible- Offer the same incentive packages to existing businesses with expansion ideas Include perks for job retention and development of city workforce and staff- Conduct open meeting with respect and proper decorum adhering to Roberts Rules of Order- Explore options for our current school system to ensure the students are receiving the best possible education and citizen’s tax dollars are being used in the best possible manner- Explore recycling option with garbage contract- Remember and learn from our past successes and failures- Explore new ways to do things to better our city- Revitalize the Model City mantra as we move forward
- Gamecock Athletic Club Board Member- Cerebral Palsy Chairman; VIP Fund Raising- Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce- JSU Alumni Association- UAB Alumni Association- Alpha Tau Omega - Fraternity
Dawson Anniston Council Ward 4
www.mdaviddawson.com
Please vote David DawsonAnniston City Council Ward 4
on August 26th.
When Farley Berman died at age 88 in 1999, he left a legacy that continues to draw people to Anniston.
Berman, whose avid weapon and artifact-collecting led to the establishment of the Berman Museum of World History, was described as a globe-trotting James Bond-figure.
A member of the U.S. Army
Counter Intelligence Corps during World War II, Berman was cagey about the source of some of his finds.
Among his collection were belt buckles that fired bullets, exploding cigarette lighters, Jef-ferson Davis’s traveling pistols, a jeweled dagger that belonged to the Egyptian King Faurok, Adolf Hitler’s tea set and a
scimitar of Abbas the Great of Persia.
When people asked about these artifacts Berman would respond, “I don’t know. It just showed up in my bedroom this morning.”
After Berman left the Army he returned to Anniston to run the family business, Berman’s Department Store. He was
also known for his ties to the military community when Fort McClellan was still active and was longtime co-chairman of the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce’s military affairs council.
Berman’s collection was so large when the museum opened in 1996, it could only display a small fraction of it.
ANNISTON’S JAMES BONDYOU OUGHT’VE KNOWN ...
Berman museum founder a globe-trotting collector of worldly artifacts
BY DAN WHISENHUNT
FARLEY BERMAN IN AFRICAImage Courtesy Anniston Museum of Natural History
Helping Anniston Build Relationships
456 Jones Road • Anniston
Phone: 256.835.0033 • Fax: 856.835.0043
www.forsythbuilding.com
ABS Business Systems Anniston Country Club Noble Bank of Oxford Anniston 1st Baptist Church
“Proudly serving Calhoun County“Proudly serving Calhoun County and its Cities and Towns.”and its Cities and Towns.”
P.O. Box 1087 • 1330 Quintard Ave. • Anniston, AL 36201www.calhounchamber.com
256.237.3536 • 1.800.489.1087
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