Beaming with pride: The Star welcomes one and all to new facility

By Matthew Korade
Star Senior Writer
09-30-2002

Gov. Don Siegelman shakes hands with Juliette Fry of Atlanta, as her sister, Griffin, and The Anniston Star’s Chairman/Publisher H. Brandt Ayers look on at The Star’s open house. Photo: Bill Wilson. A thousand or more visitors and a sizeable number of local and state dignitaries came out to the open house of Consolidated Publishing Co.’s new headquarters Sunday, allowing a rare moment of one-on-one bonding between the newspaper and the community it serves. Consolidated executives and government officials, including Gov. Don Siegelman, told the crowd that bond would live on, both in the reality of The Anniston Star’s and their other newspapers’ daily operations, and symbolically in the design of the new building itself. H. Brandt Ayers, president and publisher of Consolidated, said the dedication of the new building was an occasion for serious and deep reflection on the relationship of a newspaper with its community, and on still deeper things. “Nature embraces the building, and inside, the building opens to that embrace,” Ayers said. “It makes the statement that, while man is part of God’s creation, he is not superior to God’s creation.” Ayers went on to explain the special approach his company takes to the newspaper industry. If Consolidated were a chain newspaper, Ayers said, if it cared less about quality journalism, that lack would be recorded in a smaller building and reduced coverage. The difference is that The Star and the community are a family, with all the corresponding dysfunction, and the love. “Sometimes we disagree,” Ayers said. “You hurt our feelings and we hurt yours. But we have gotten past it. We have always gotten past it. Because we have to, because we’re family.” Chris Waddle, Star vice president for news, developed the theme of connecting the building’s aesthetic and functional use. “Can a building be good journalism?” Waddle asked the crowd. “Does architecture tell a story? Are bricks and steel and wood the stuff of community newspapering? Yes. This building in this place … at this time is the who, what, when and how of journalism. This place is in the community. The structure grows from community. The design stands for the community. “My fellow workers here feel tremendously energized by the new job place. We feel a burst of creativity on your behalf. We come to work here every day to hold a mirror up for all the community to see itself. This very building tells a story of community journalism. It tells a story of time and place.” Government officials expanded on the company’s intimate ties to the community. Gov. Don Siegelman talked about history, Americans and Anniston.

Dieter ‘Didi’ Lange of Anniston checks out The Star’s new press. Photo: Bill Wilson. Alexis De Toqueville, the famous French historian, when touring the new country of the United States, said American journalists have a scanty education and a vulgar turn of mind, Siegelman said. “But I can tell you, he wasn’t talking about The Anniston Star, he was talking about the Birmingham News and the Mobile Press Register.” As evidence, the governor cited The Star’s stand on civil rights, fighting to make the salaries of black and white educators equal, and, more recently, its involvement with Next Start, a volunteer tutoring program in Anniston public schools. Siegelman also recognized The Star’s commitment to economic growth, pushing for the creation of a research park for automotive and other technology at the former Fort McClellan Army base, “research that will drive the economy of this state well into the future.” “Thanks on behalf of Alabamians, for a century of dedication to the people of Alabama, especially in the field of education,” the governor said. Anniston Mayor Chip Howell kept his remarks short — he knew better than to battle those who buy ink by the barrel and paper by the ton, he said. The mayor reminisced about his father’s golf outings with the late Ralph Callahan, a Star board member, and how they wound up passing the same old, well-weathered two-dollar bill back and forth between them. He then gave the bill to Ayers, who was sitting nearby. “This symbolizes developing this end of town not at the expense of the other,” Howell said. Ed Fowler, Star vice president for operations, welcomed all to the event, which was three years in the making. “Whenever I talk about this building I say ‘we’ a lot, because it really was we,” he said. The Rev. Robert Childers, rector of Grace Episcopal Church, gave the dedication and blessing. Childers likened the building to the biblical story of Ezekiel, who had a revelation of resurrection in a valley of dry bones. “A little more than a year ago, this was no more than a valley of bones,” Childers said. “Since that time, these dry bones have come together, skin, tendons, to make this place, the brick, the mortar, the beautiful landscape. But what this place needs more than that is the breath, the breath of truth, of compassion, of love. And with that truth this place can live.” After the remarks and dedication, Bruce Lowry, Star commentary editor, was overheard speaking to the building’s chief architect, David Hogan, of Dario Designs, a Framingham, Mass., architectural firm that specializes in newspaper buildings. “I just want to thank you,” Lowry said. “I spent many years in the old building.” “It means so much to hear you say that,” Hogan said. “I can’t tell you.” Hogan explained that he had tried to blur the line between the building’s natural setting and the office interior, using earth-tone tile flooring in the stepped entryway and through the glassed-in lobby. There, exposed, rusty interior beams hearken to Anniston’s steel-mill past. Also, a diffuse interior lighting complements the pyramidal skylights and large windows throughout the building, further bringing the outdoors in. Star City Hall reporter Nathan Solheim told Hogan the new building made it a pleasure to come to work, to which Hogan responded with a rare compliment: “You can pick the phone up and call me anytime you want.”

About Matt Korade

Matt Korade was a senior writer for The Star.