Six Distinguished Leaders to be Inducted into C&IS Hall of Fame at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Six distinguished journalists and community leaders who worked to advance the democratic arts in diverse ways will be inducted into The University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences’ Hall of Fame Oct. 13. The induction ceremonies will be at the NorthRiver Yacht Club.

Established by the C&IS Board of Visitors, the Communication Hall of Fame was created in 1998 to honor, preserve and perpetuate the names and accomplishments of civic and communication personalities who have brought lasting fame to the state of Alabama. This year marks the eighth class of inductees into the Hall of Fame. These honored individuals include:

• Albert P. Brewer (1935- )
• Ronald B. Casey (1951-2000)
• Thomas E. Corts (1941- )
• Jack Edwards (1928- )
• Wayne Flynt (1940- )
• H. Bailey Thomson (1949-2003)

“Several years ago the college adopted ‘advancing the democratic arts’ as its mantra,” said Dr. E. Culpepper Clark, dean of the College of Communication and Information Sciences. “Certainly none in Alabama have done more to promote democratic reform than have the members of this class. They share in common a profound faith in the capacity of Alabamians to govern themselves and a commitment to constitutional reform that can make it possible.”

The Communication Hall of Fame Gallery is located in the rotunda of Reese Phifer Hall on the UA campus.

Permanent archives will be established and maintained for the collection of memorabilia related to the lives and careers of those chosen for placement in the Hall of Fame.

The College of Communication and Information Sciences is among the largest and most prestigious communication colleges in the country, having graduated more than 12,000 students and ranking among the top institutions in the country in the number of doctorates awarded. Communication graduates have earned four of the six Pulitzer Prizes awarded to UA alumni.

2005 College of Communication and Information Sciences Hall of Fame Inductees

Albert P. Brewer
(1935 – )

Albert Preston Brewer, originally from Bethel Springs, Tenn., moved with his family to Decatur in 1935. He earned both an undergraduate and a law degree from The University of Alabama. In 1952 he returned to Decatur to begin his law practice.

Elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1954, Brewer would become the only person to hold the three highest offices in the executive and legislative branches of state government. He served as Speaker of the House of Representatives before winning the 1966 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, defeating three opponents without a runoff. Upon the death of Gov. Lurleen Wallace in 1968, he became governor.

Brewer became Alabama’s first, and many would say only, New South governor. Appropriations for public schools rose by the largest percentage in state history, and he insisted on equalizing funding for local school systems. He led the charge for a higher education commission and a constitutional amendment to provide for the election of members to the state Board of Education.

Brewer also had a genius for making things work better. He combined several loosely organized agencies into an Alabama Development Office, which positioned Alabama for both sustained and quality economic growth. He economized in such ways as to construct a State Agricultural Building and a new wing of the Department of Archives and History, all without new revenues.

Court reform and the state’s first Ethics Commission were also high on his agenda, but accountability served a higher purpose in his administration. From the angry rhetoric of George Wallace and the diehard segregationists, Brewer guided the state through the final, mandatory desegregation orders with a calm confidence that enhanced the state’s battered reputation. For his determination to abide the rule of law, he would be pushed from office by the return of George Wallace. Although Gov. Brewer had defeated Wallace by a plurality in the primary election of 1970, he was narrowly defeated in a run-off campaign that was legendary for its appeal to racism.

With Brewer as governor, the Constitutional Revision Commission was formed, and a new constitution was drafted. Today that document still serves as a model for what many believe Alabama ought to do and an inspiration for those who believe that Alabama can be governed by its hopes, rather than its fears.

In the 35 years since Albert Brewer governed this state, he has had an enviable career including that of a highly acclaimed professor of law at Samford University. And he has never ceased to answer the call to serve. He has received every honor imaginable, including the Alabama Academy of Honor, and has lent distinction to each. Albert Brewer now becomes the first governor of Alabama to grace the College of Communication and Information Sciences Hall of Fame, and he does so because his life accomplishments so completely embody the C&IS mission to “advance the democratic arts.”

Ronald B. Casey
(1951 – 2000)

Ron Casey could talk the talk – in person and in print. His words came together in thousands of articles and in thousands of ways, not merely to inform Alabamians but to better Alabama. As a foundry worker’s son, he grew up in Midfield, literally beneath the smoke of nearby steel mills. Some say that is why spotting a smokescreen was second nature to him.

Not everyone liked it when Casey began to see through Alabama’s inequitable tax system; he produced the series “What They Won’t Tell You About Your Taxes,” anyway. The Pulitzer Prize Committee affirmed his courage and made him a recipient of the prestigious award in 1991 and a finalist again in 1994. High praise and recognition for his abilities came often. Various state and national competitions, including the National Headliners Award, proved that Casey’s editorial writing could combine art with fact to yield provocative conversation.

One provocation led to a government adviser’s visit. Casey, it turns out, knew more about the plan in question than the adviser. Things were discussed; motivations questioned; and finally in an attempt to put Casey in his place, the adviser questioned Casey’s southern sensibilities by accusing him of being educated up north. While Casey could have gone anywhere he wanted – such was his talent and intellect – he had chosen to cultivate his education where it would be needed most: home. “Nope, I graduated from The University of Alabama,” Casey replied. Casey was a man who also walked his talk, talk that was unabashedly homegrown.

Wayne Flynt described Casey as “a man in full.” Even as a young man, his sense of complete involvement was apparent. Fresh out of college, he landed in jail, consequences of campaign coverage that involved a sheriff’s wrongdoings.

When Casey demonstrated that the arrest itself was wrongful, he used some of the settlement money to throw a legendary party, but a larger truth had been served: journalists can not, must not, be bullied from the facts, especially in a city and state that was legendary for cowing reporters. Maybe that is why Ron Casey’s most famous saying keeps challenging journalists today: “If you want fine wine, go to France. If you want to write editorials, go to Alabama.”

Despite the courage of his convictions or the deceptive ease he made of difficult work, Casey was not at ease with the resulting praise. After hearing he had won the Pulitzer, his first reaction was directed toward others. “Good, I hope this makes them [the Legislature] change things.” Awards to Casey were only the talk. And though he was considered the best editorial writer in Alabama, he was more concerned with the walk that should follow. Alabama would do well to stay the course.

Casey’s death breathed life into a burgeoning movement for reform in Alabama – a movement that is not done yet. Casey’s life is a lasting testimonial to the enduring relationship between journalism and democracy.

Thomas E. Corts
(1941 – )

When the organizers of Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform needed a leader, only one person would do and that person had no time to do it, but he did it anyway. Dr. Thomas E. Corts, president of Samford University, already had delivered a memorable address before civic leaders in Birmingham. With biblical mien, he cried out “How long, Alabama? O how long?” That voice and that speech called for a new constitution that in his words “empowers instead of prohibits, that offers vision instead of reaction, that promotes results instead of inefficiency and that fosters community rather than division.”

Corts was born in Terre Haute, Ind., and grew up in Ashtabula, Ohio. He graduated from Georgetown College of Kentucky and earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Indiana University. In 1983 he made Alabama his home and 22 years later now serves as the longest tenured senior college president in the state. When combined with his previous service as president of Wingate College in North Carolina, Corts is one of only a few presidents to have served in that capacity for more than three decades.

Under his leadership, Samford has prospered as in no other time in that proud institution’s long and distinguished history. Its national standing and reputation has never been higher, and its success has been accompanied by a strong sense of purpose. For Corts, millions in capital improvements, quality enrollments and a strong faculty were not enough. It all had to result in civic engagement. And so he set Samford University on a course of service to the people of Alabama.

In addition to his indefatigable commitment to constitutional reform, Corts earlier helped establish the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, for which Gov. Albert Brewer served as first executive director. It is now the state’s leading think-tank on issues and policies that affect its people. As president of Samford, Corts set a community standard “higher than mere non-discrimination” and communicated a strong and radical message of self-awareness and acceptance accompanied by the ideal that the University and its members “treat others as we would want to be treated.”

He has served as chair and as president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, president of the American Association of Presidents of Independent Colleges and Universities, as well as president of the National Fellowship of Baptist Educators. His honors are legion, including induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor.

Now President Corts is in his victory lap, having announced his retirement from the presidency of Samford at the end of the 2005-2006 academic year. His imprint on the state of Alabama is indelible. One now cannot think about constitutional reform in Alabama and good government for its people without hearing his voice. It is this legacy that makes Corts induction into the Communication Hall of Fame not only natural but inevitable.

Jack Edwards
(1928 – )

When Jack Edwards was elected to Congress as a Republican in 1964, it was a novelty in Alabama, but not in his family. His great, great grandfather had been the last Republican congressman some 60 years before. Edwards would spend the next 20 years in Congress where he became a leader, meeting regularly with Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan. But one should never attempt to explain Edwards by party affiliation, loyal though he is. Edwards initially decided to run for Congress at the request of his Sunday school class, not at the behest of some conservative coalition forming in the South. One of his most enjoyed and admired friends in Washington was Nelson Rockefeller. In real life, Edwards was, and is, as independent and progressive as his “grandpa” who swam against the then Democratic tide at the beginning of the last century.

Edwards has been a practicing attorney since leaving Congress and has served as chairman of the Audit Committees for both the Northrop Gruman Corp. and the Southern Company. Much of his life and career has focused on conservation. His tireless efforts greatly helped to establish the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge in coastal Alabama. In response to legislation sponsored by Edwards, the refuge, which is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge System, was designated in 1980.

It also is due, in part, to his efforts and leadership that the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve was established in 1986, as well as its Foundation in 1990. The Coastal Land Trust of the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta also was formed as a response to Edwards’ efforts and initiatives.

As much as he has done to conserve the environment, Edwards has been as dedicated to cleaning up the political process in Alabama. He always has pushed for higher standards in the election of judges to the state’s highest courts. He has been a champion of constitutional reform, perhaps because the same people who made his grandfather the last Republican congressman, before his own election, also foisted the 1901 Constitution on Alabama in an effort to disfranchise the very people who most needed the vote. Then, at a time when Edwards had earned his rest, he came back to join forces with all those seeking to rid Alabama, once and for all, of its constitutional embarrassment.

Edwards is not only a pivotal figure in the state’s political history, he has been a foot soldier in the cause of reform. A trustee emeritus of The University of Alabama and former president pro tem of its board, an inductee into the Alabama Academy of Honor, Edwards joins Gov. Albert Brewer, Congressman Carl Elliott and former Senator and Justice Hugo Black as the only elected officials in The University of Alabama’s Communication Hall of Fame. And on this proud occasion for the College of Communication and Information Sciences, the College takes additional satisfaction in noting that the grandfather who, like the grandson, charted his own independent course was a journalist, editor of the Birmingham Times.

Wayne Flynt
(1940 – )

Wayne Flynt, a self-proclaimed hell-raising, bible-preaching, history teacher, grows roses and plays with his grandkids. Known for speaking his mind and challenging those in positions of power to use theirs, he not only serves as Alabama’s unofficial conscience, he also has contributed 11 painstakingly researched books that help tell the story of our state. Flynt’s integrity requires him to tell this story honestly, even when it is not popular to do so.

His sense of integrity comes from a long line of people who do not seem to care what others think and a set of parents whose work ethic could stretch the workday to 16 hours and move a family 36 times. Despite constantly being the new kid and an intense dislike of school, a high school teacher sensed something about his intelligence. She placed him on the debate team, where his gift for argument, based on facts, took root. It also took him to Howard College, now Samford University, on a scholarship where he got his first taste of government – he served as president of the Student Government Association.

After graduation, his boyhood dream of attending seminary and becoming a preacher collided with the racism of the Southern Baptists. Frustrated, he left the state seeking higher ground. But Florida’s ground was not all that high after all, and after his dissertation at Florida State University, he returned home. The podium, he had decided, could be just as powerful as the pulpit.

Throughout much of his career, time was Flynt’s main constraint. He became one of the most sought-after speakers, a veritable itinerant evangelist of all things Alabama: religion, politics and the historical context in which they had been set. During some periods he had to turn down 10 invitations for every one he accepted. His popularity as a prophet soared. But like the prophets of old, not everybody liked him. Some downright despised him. Wife Dorothy worried more than once about his well being; The threats came, but Flynt ignored them and went right on about his business, that of bettering Alabama.

“Mind Your Own Business,” by fellow Alabamian Hank Williams, may be Flynt’s favorite song, but Alabama’s business became his. And for that, it is impossible to calculate how lucky Alabama is.

Flynt, Distinguished University Professor of History at Auburn University has won numerous teaching awards during his 38-year career including the Mortar Board National Honor Society Favorite Educator. He has won the Lillian Smith Award for nonfiction, the Clarence Cason Nonfiction Writing Award and twice won both the James Sulzby Jr. Book Award and the Alabama Library Association Award for nonfiction.

“I was called to fight, not win,” he says. But fighting for the rights of others, especially the dispossessed, is winning, and for the courage of his convictions, The University of Alabama and its College of Communication and Information Sciences is honored to welcome Flynt into its Communication Hall of Fame.

H. Bailey Thomson
(1949 – 2003)

Bailey Thomson planted a bundle of loblolly pines around his family’s farm in Pickens County when he was 10. His 4-H teacher had donated them with careful instructions. True to his nature, Thomson deliberately placed each seedling into a hole as directed, and covered the roots with a bit of red earth. Such care and dedication was his North Star, as he earned three degrees from The University of Alabama and became a journalist, a scholar, a teacher and a loyal friend to all who labored in the vineyards of truth and honor with him.

Thomson began work as a journalist for The Huntsville Times and The Tuscaloosa News.

Later, he was editorial page editor of The Shreveport (La.) Journal, and chief editorial writer for the Orlando Sentinel in Florida. He returned to Alabama in 1992 to become associate editor of the Mobile Register, where, in 1995, he and two colleagues were finalists for a Pulitzer Prize.

In 1999, an editorial series Thomson wrote for the Register about Alabama, titled “Dixie’s Broken Heart,” won the Distinguished Writing Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Two years later, he was a finalist for the same award and also for a Pulitzer. In 2002, he was both editor and an author of “Century of Controversy,” a book about Alabama’s antiquated constitution. And though Thomson did not hesitate to speak out about controversial issues, his voice seemed guided by predecessor Clarence Cason’s notion that what we need is a quiet revolution, a revision of our fixed ideas, a redirection of our courage and audacity. With a quiet but fixed and courageous voice, Thomson took on the issue of Constitutional Reform creating the Alabama Center for Constitutional Reform and then taking his message to the people of Alabama town meeting by town meeting, Alabamian to Alabamian.

E. Culpepper Clark, dean of The University’s College of Communication and Information Sciences, says no faculty member more fully embraced the College’s mission of advancing the democratic arts than Thomson. Clark, who often accompanied Thomson on his grassroots errands, logging an untold number of country miles, jokingly redefined his job as “Driving Mr. Bailey.”

Among Thompson’s numerous gifts to his colleagues and the University was the creation of the Clarence Cason Non-Fiction Writing Award, which is now recognized among the nation’s finest prizes. Previous recipients have included Gay Talese, E. O. Wilson, Howell Raines, Albert Murray, Wayne Flynt, Diane McWhorter, Rick Bragg and Thomson himself.

Thomson’s death in 2003 cut short a brilliant career, but the seedlings he planted continue to bear fruit. The College of Communication and Information Sciences, Thomson’s College, is proud to honor one of its own with induction into its Communication Hall of Fame.

Editor’s Note: For e-mailed inductee photo sketches, contact Deidre Stalnaker in University Relations at 205/348-3782.