Editor’s Note: When I heard the other day that Jimmy Faulkner of Bay Minette had died, it brought back a lot of memories. And while we usually stay focused on the big national news on this independent news Website, there are times when we will reach back into the past and into local climes for interesting stories.

I must say that when I read all the glowing feature obituaries on Faulkner, no relation to the literary family from Mississippi that I know of, I just had to laugh out loud. Faulkner got the unchallenged praise in print he angled for his entire life in the Mobile Cash-Register and Gulf Coast Newspapers.

While we realize that it is an American journalism tradition to give people their due when they die — even political monsters such as George C. Wallace — we could not let this moment pass without at least a small tinge of criticism. After all, that’s what bloggers do.

Before we get to the obit, a couple of memories.

When I first met James H. “Jimmy” Faulkner in his office around the corner from The Baldwin Times newspaper office, which was across the street from the Baldwin County Courthouse on the small town circle, as a young cub reporter I thought he was a major head of state or something. That’s how he presented himself, with his secretary greeting you warmly in the outer office and making you wait for a little while before he would usher you in like he was the governor himself, even though he only served a couple of terms in the Alabama Senate.

But in South Alabama, as I found out over the next year in 1984-85, he was a political force who could call up George Wallace at any time and get pretty much whatever he wanted.

He was always gracious, but he exuded power.

The last time I saw Mr. Faulkner, he was fairly feeble and almost blind. It was 2002 and I was free-lancing for The New York Times, visiting Bay Minette to find out how the 2002 election had swung overnight from Don Siegelman to Bob Riley. Even though he had a reputation as being a life-long “Yellow Dog Democrat,” I got the distinct impression that Faulkner had supported Riley in that race. He tried to convince me that Baldwin County had never had an instance of election fraud in its entire history, but I was not thoroughly convinced then, or now.

In the one time I saw Faulkner really rattled and upset about something, he had been involved in a deal to sell a chemical plant he co-owned to the Uniroyal corporation, which was suing him after residents discovered that a nearby creek had been contaminated. He was pretty upset since because of the lawsuit, the bank had frozen his accounts and seized his assets. I don’t remember how the case came out, but I still have that front page hanging on my wall. It was my first lead story in newspaper as a professional reporter (not counting The Crimson White student newspaper at the University of Alabama).

So let’s just say that while Faulkner was a class act in his own way, he was not above wheeling and dealing as a business man in ways that might not have been as squeaky clean as the image he worked hard all his life to project.

The bottom line is he was a big fish in a little pond. But here’s his due…

GW

by Glynn Wilson and Dan Rutledge

James Herman “Jimmy” Faulkner, a long-time political power in Alabama politics, died August 22 after a long illness. He was 92.

Dan Rutledge

Faulkner’s face on the sign for the college named after him

He leaves a legacy of service to Bay Minette and Baldwin County, where he moved in 1936, for numerous economic development achievements, the primary focus of his life. During his life, he was a world traveler, touring more than 100 countries, as the legend goes.

At the age of 20, shortly after his arrival in Bay Minette from Tuscaloosa, he purchased The Baldwin Times newspaper, launching a career which he expanded into becoming a radio executive, a mayor, a state senator and a founder and president of an insurance company. He also ran two unsuccessful campaigns for governor, but became a long-time associate of George Wallace. And he published a newspaper column called “Mumblings” for 72 years.

Born March 1, 1916, near Vernon in Lamar County, Alabama, Faulkner began his life enjoying the positive guidance of his father, farmer, and mother, a school teacher. He received his advanced education at Freed-Hardeman Junior College, Henderson, Tennessee in 1933-1934, and the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, in 1934-1936.

Upon arriving in Bay Minette, he began working to build his newly acquired newspaper and seeking ways to enhance the growth of his hometown and Baldwin County. Faulkner was elected mayor of Bay Minette, serving from 1941-1943. He was the youngest mayor in America at that time. He was a World War II veteran, joiining the U.S. Army Air Corps, attaining the rank of First Lieutenant while serving as a pilot and flight instructor from 1943-1946.

Upon returning from military duty, he was elected state senator, serving from 1950-1954. While serving in the state Senate, he was a primary figure in improving education in Alabama, attaining the best retirement benefits in the nation for teachers and education administrators.

His political activities, in addition to serving as a mayor, state senator, and two campaigns for governor, have included being a member of the State Democratic Executive Committee, 1948-1952, finance chairman of the Alabama Democratic Campaign, 1976, and secretary-treasurer of the Baldwin County Democratic Executive Committee, 1936-1978.

His newspapers were widely recognized for their excellence over the years, often receiving the top award of General Excellence in their circulation category from the Alabama Press Association. His radio stations also received numerous awards for excellence in broadcasting. He co-published two books, Five Dollars A Scalp, in 1976, and Massacre, in 1989.

Two biographies have been written about him, the first Faulkner - Jimmy That Is, by Sandra Baxley Taylor, published in 1984 by The Strode Publishers (a vanity press); and Faith and Works, by Elvin Stanton, published in 2002 by NewSouth Books. He has had two additional books published, compilations of his newspaper columns spanning 72 years. The first is Mumblings, published by J.C. Choate Publications in 2004, and the second Byways of Baldwin, published by NewSouth Books in 2007.

Faulkner became a member of the Board of Directors of Alabama Christian College, Montgomery, Alabama, serving as chairman of the board from 1963-1989. He was instrumental in bringing a solid financial foundation to the college and assuring the success of a law school there. In April, 1985, the college was named in his honor, Faulkner University, and now has additional campuses in Huntsville and Mobile. He also was instrumental in acquiring a two-year college for Baldwin County, later named Faulkner State Community College in his honor. The main campus is in Bay Minette with additional campuses in Fairhope and Gulf Shores.

His professional achievements are lengthy. To name the most important few, he was founder and president of Loyal American Life Insurance Company of Mobile in 1955; owner and publisher of three newspapers in Baldwin County from 1936-1974; president of Faulkner Radio, Inc., a chain of seven radio stations in Alabama and Georgia from 1958-1985; president of Faulkner Phillips Media, Inc., 1985-1997; director of the First National Bank, Fairhope, 1976-1978; vice chairman of the board, David Volkert and Associates, Inc., 1984-2008; and chairman of the board, Alpine Laboratories, a chemical plant in Bay Minette, 1975-1979.

His memberships include the Bay Minette Church of Christ, where he was a member for 72 years and served as Elder and Treasurer for 50 years; Rotary Club; American Legion; President’s Club, Freed-Hardeman College; Who’s Who in South and Southwest; Who’s Who in World Commerce; Who’s Who in America; and Newcomen Society.

Faulkner received more than 35 awards during his lifetime, including eight Honorary Doctor degrees. Faulkner’s civic organization memberships and activities have been extensive over the years.

His family received friends Tuesday, August 26, at Norris Funeral Home. A private funeral service was held Wednesday, August 27, at the Bay Minette Church of Christ with private graveside services following in Bay Minette Cemetery. A memorial service was held at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the L.D. Owen Performing Arts Center at Faulkner State Community College in Bay Minette. The family asks that contributions be made to the James Herman Faulkner Scholarship Fund at Faulkner State Community College, 1900 South Highway 31, Bay Minette, Alabama 36507 or Faulkner University, 5345 Atlanta Highway, Montgomery, Alabama 36193. Funeral arrangements were by Norris Funeral Home, Bay Minette.

He is survived by his wife, Karlene Faulkner; two sons, James H. Faulkner, Jr., and his wife Beverly Faulkner, and Dr. Henry Wade Faulkner and his wife, Ann Blackburn Faulkner; eight grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Henry L. Faulkner and Ebbie Johnson Faulkner; his first wife, Evelyn Irwin Faulkner, the daughter of the late Wade and Ella Irwin; and his brother, Dr. Thurston L. Faulkner, who served as Alabama Director of Vocational Education.

Other obits:

Gulf Coast Newspapers: So long, Jimmy!

Mobile Press-Register: Faulkner’s impact on area was enormous

Editor’s Note: As many of you already know, I got my start as a newspaper reporter in Bay Minette, Alabama, where I covered the courthouse, politics and other things for The Baldwin Times. It was 1984 and Ronald Reagan was running for a second term as president. One of the most interesting characters I met that year was a scraggly-looking country boy from Baldwin County named Steve Dukes.

They say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Although in these professionalized times we live in, the corporate greed-heads tend to discriminate against anyone who looks or talks a little funny, even if they may be the most creative and competent person for the job. And that would certainly describe Dukes.

Every time that little chain of twice-weekly newspapers in the southwest corner of the state got a new owner and publisher over the years, the first thing they would do is fire Dukes. But after a few weeks or months when it became apparent that they needed somebody who knew what they were doing to cover local sports, they would call Dukes back and rehire him. This was certainly true of former publisher Terry Everett, now a Congressman.

I got to know Dukes better in my second stint working in Baldwin County from 1989-1992, when he had been relegated to a free-lance position covering sports and being paid by the game instead of a real salary with benefits. To make ends meet, he worked for Mikee’s Restaurant in Gulf Shores on the weekends, and I would sometimes run into him there and take the time to catch up on sports news and news from the northern part of Alabama’s biggest county.

Dukes was one of the last great characters from the last days of newspapering in America before the craft lost its soul to the money-men. Newspaper publishers don’t hire creative characters anymore. They hire PR men and women who dress right and show up on time and know how to spell - and not rock the boat.

Dan Rutledge is another one of those characters, although I call him “the Zen man,” for surviving as long as he did in the newspaper “business.” He just retired last year, and will once again be writing a sports column for us every Friday during football season starting in August, dog willing…

God Needed A Statistician

by Dan Rutledge

God must have needed a statistician in heaven.

That’s the only explanation that makes any sense of the sudden death of Steve Dukes last Thursday at his home in Pine Grove. He was 58.

Who was Steve Dukes? There are many answers to that question.

He was the first person I met when I arrived in Baldwin County in 1982 to be the countywide sports editor for a fledgling group of weekly newspapers. I’d been told that one of the sports guys working for me would be a big, unusual-looking guy with thick glasses who always wore flip flops but who was a good sportswriter and a great guy.

The scouting report proved to be right on. Steve was all that and more and wound up being one of if not my best friend.

Steve was a newspaper man, a reporter whose beat was sports but who could write about anything. He was one of the best writers this former editor has ever had the privilege of working with. He knew the rules of grammar and the AP (Associated Press) Style Book by heart. He was painstaking in his writing – it had to be correct, grammar-wise and spelling, too – and he never liked to let a story go until he had proofread it at least once.

When the word came that NBC’s Tim Russert had died suddenly on Friday, I thought, “We’ve lost two good journalists in two days – one known by everyone, one known in just Baldwin County.” Like Russert, Steve was a good, no great, reporter. If you gave Steve an assignment, you knew he would get the facts, get to the heart of the story and that he would tell it like it was. And when it came time to write the story, he was always fair and tried to tell all sides. (And when you gave Steve an assignment, you never had to worry about what you would get or if you would get a story at all … you always got it and got it on time. He always came through.)

Steve loved sports. He began writing sports stories for the Baldwin Times while still in high school and kept statistics – from whence came his nickname “Stats” — for the Baldwin County High School teams and the newspaper … and just kept on writing after high school. For some 35 years, if you went to sporting events anywhere in Baldwin County, it was more than likely you’d see Steve – and he was not hard to spot with his unruly grey beard. And although he reported on sporting events all over the county, Baldwin County High School, his alma mater, and Faulkner State Community College were his favorites to cover.

Steve loved his alma mater and FSCC and was proud whenever they, or anyone representing them, accomplished something athletically.

Both BCHS and FSCC lost a great friend when Steve passed away. Oh, someone will (seemingly) take his place and cover the game(s) and write it up for one paper or another … but whoever it is will not write it with the love for BCHS or FSCC (or the Alabama Crimson Tide or the Los Angeles Dodgers or the LA Lakers) that Steve would have put into it.

Steve was also a kind and gentle soul who did his best to like everyone and not sit in judgment of anyone. Steve gave of himself without thinking about it and helped whenever and wherever he saw the need. If you were his friend, you could count yourself as one of the fortunate ones.

His gentle nature and good heartedness, as well as his willingness to help others, is a credit to his mother and dad. (Yes, Mrs. Dukes, the right upbringing does tell.)

And perhaps the ones who will be the big losers because of Steve’s no longer being on the Baldwin sports scene are the kids, the high school and junior college athletes, whose names won’t make it into the newspaper.

Steve was known for writing stories that were plenty long, sometimes too long … but that was because he liked to name every player who scored or gained a yard or caught a pass or in some other way did something to help their team win. While not earth-shattering news, that yard or reception is big news, a reason of self-esteem, for the player or his/her parents.

So long, for now, Steve Dukes. We’ll miss you. Baldwin County sports will miss you.

As for Steve himself, I’ll bet he’s happy right now! If I know Steve, his first question on arrival in heaven was, “Where’s the hospitality room?” And I’ll wager that by now he has probably already met and interviewed – with his tape recorder in hand – Bama’s Bear Bryant, the Green Bay Packers’ Vince Lombardi and the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax.

I only wish he could send us the stories he would write from those interviews. Guess I’ll have to wait until I get on the other side, too, to read them.

Dan Rutledge is the former long-time sports editor for Gulf Coast Newspapers and former editor of the Baldwin Times in Bay Minette, Alabama.

by Glynn Wilson

Blues harp player and singer Topper Price, one of Alabama’s more interesting musicians and characters, died Wednesday night at his apartment on the Southside of Birmingham. He was 54 and was about to release his third solo album.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Topper Price, R.I.P.

The official cause of his death has not been released by the Jefferson County Coroner, but sources close to Mr. Price say he had a seizure after eating dinner Wednesday night with his fiancée, Kelly Casey. The seizure could have been caused by a drug overdose. Paramedics tried and failed to revive him.

No funeral or official memorial service is planned for the next week, Ms. Casey said in an interview. But Topper, whose real name was Terry O’Neil Price, wanted to be cremated, she said, so the plans for that were in the works Friday.

“He didn’t really want a funeral, just for some friends to get together,” Ms. Casey said, so plans for a memorial service will be announced sometime next week.

“I’m supposed to be planning a wedding, not a funeral,” Ms. Casey told a reporter for the Birmingham News and the Locust Fork News and Journal. “He was an incredible guy. He had one of the kindest hearts I’ve ever met in my life.”

Paul “Sleepy Gumbo Bailey” Walters said the Magic City Blues Society was dedicating a blues jam to Topper Friday night at Burly Earl and taking donations to help pay his burial expenses.

“He was one of the premier harmonica players in Alabama,” Mr. Walters said as he announced the untimely death to the Blue Mail list Thursday with “a heavy heart.”

Mr. Price was born in the Plateau community near Mobile and had no close relatives in Birmingham, according to Ms. Casey, although he did have a father and a daughter living in the Mobile area.

I first saw Topper play myself in Mobile back in the 1980s, then got to know him in Birmingham while operating the NewsBreak newsstand, bookstore and coffee bar from 1986 to 1989.

Topper performed all over the Southeast over the past 30 years and played with some of the music greats in blues and Southern Rock, including Dickie Betts of the Allman Brothers Band, Scott Boyer and Cowboy, The Convertables, The Band and The Radiators, along with Albert Collins, Johnny Shines, Wayne Perkins and Brother Cane.

“Topper gave a lot of joy to people in this town,” Walters said. “There was something magnetic about him. He was the top harmonica player in the state, with a unique and powerful style. When you’re talking about blues in Birmingham, you’re talking about Topper Price.”

Mr. Price recorded two CDs during his career, according to the News, including “Long Way From Home” and “Nature (Part 1).” Casey said he had recently completed his third CD, tentatively called “Nature (Part 2),” in a home studio and was looking forward to its release.

He played me a cut from the CD a few weeks ago outside The Nick, and we talked about plans to promote it.

“It was an extremely long time in the making,” Casey confirmed. “But it was the most important thing he had going on. He was very, very proud of it.”

Topper had a lot of loyal fans across the state, not just in Birmingham. He played regularly in Tuscaloosa and Montgomery as well.

“I loved this guy,” said Cheryl Sabel, a fan from Montgomery. “I went to hear him every time he was in town.”

Mr. Price wasn’t a music teacher, but he did have an influence on other musicians, including soul singer, harmonica player and “American Idol” finalist Taylor Hicks, according to the News.

Hicks said he would sneak into nightclubs as a teenager to hear Mr. Price perform, and was influenced by his showmanship. Mr. Price would drop to his knees during solos and moved on stage with flamboyant passion.

“He was not only a harmonica player, he was an entertainer,” Hicks said. “He taught me the difference. I remember when he was playing at The Mill; there was a banister on stage and he used to wrap his leg around it. That really struck me. He was one of the finest harmonica players that I’ve heard. He had a great voice. He was the real deal - a bluesman.”

Guitar player Jeff Adkins, who has played with Topper Price and the Upsetters on and off for the past 10 years, said Topper was “the single greatest, well-rounded musician I’ve ever played with, and by far the best band director, conductor.”

I asked Topper one day outside the old Highland Music store at 30th and Highland where he learned to sing and play the blues. He told me an elaborate story about once going looking for the “Blues School” on a certain street corner on the Southside of Chicago. I think they made a movie about that.

As Tuscaloosa News columnist Tommy Stevenson said about Topper, “Like Rhett Maddox, he was a mess. A talented mess, but a mess nonetheless.”

Another blues harp player, Jock Webb, said in addition to being a great player and a funny character, Topper was an incredibly generous guy who didn’t hesitate to help other people, either by covering a gig when someone else couldn’t make it or helping inspire kids in the Blues in Schools program.

“He was always there, man,” Webb said. “I could call him up from Boston or Atlanta, and he would answer the call to help, no matter what.”

John McClusky, a Tuscaloosa lawyer who was handling Mr. Price’s affairs, said the one thing just about everyone who knew him says about Topper, “He was a true gentleman.”

Matt Kimbrell, a percussionist from a talented musical family from Birmingham who knew Topper for many years, upon learning the news of Topper’s death, said what a lot of people feel.

“It just breaks my heart, man.”

Monday Update

On Tuesday, May 29, The Nick will host a Topper Price open mic memorial with no cover charge, although donations are welcome. Then on Wednesday, June 27, The Nick will also host a Topper Price fundraiser to help cover cremation expenses, according to the Magic City Blues Society.

Also, the Jefferson County Coroner’s office is saying it will be next week at least before a final cause of death will be determined and released.

American leaders across the political spectrum are eulogizing the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, albeit with some criticism of his tendency to lash out at his adversaries.

But lost in this desire not to speak ill of the dead is the troubling story of Falwell’s secret financial dealings with South Korean cult leader Sun Myung Moon and how Moon’s mysterious money bailed out Falwell’s Liberty University.

For the full story of Falwell’s Faustian bargain, go to the independent ConsortiumNews.Com.