Douglas F. Attaway

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Douglas F. "Doug" Attaway, Jr.
Born	September 10, 1910 (1910-09-10) Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana USA
Died	February 21, 1994 (aged 83) Shreveport
Nationality	American
Occupation	Newspaper publisher; television station owner
Spouse	Marion Sailor Attaway (1918 - 1999, married 1936 until his death)
Children	Douglas Wesley "Wes" Attaway (born 1938) of Shreveport, Susan Elizabeth Attaway of Shreveport, and Diane Kathryn Attaway Bolen of Madill, Oklahoma
Notes Promoted navigation of Red River

Douglas F. "Doug" Attaway, Jr. (September 10, 1910 – February 21, 1994), was from 1957 to 1976 the president and publisher of the defunct Shreveport Journal, a daily newspaper which circulated in northwestern Louisiana, east Texas, and southern Arkansas. He was also the chairman of the board of television station KSLA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Shreveport, from 1966 until the channel was sold to Viacom in 1979. He was a former chairman of the board of Newspaper Production Company and the Attaway Newspaper Group, Inc.

1 Early years
2 Newspaper publisher
3 Civic organizations
4 Death and legacy
5 References

[edit] Early years

Attaway was born in Shreveport to Journal publisher Douglas Attaway, Sr., and the former Bessie Fisher (1884-1967). He graduated from C.E. Byrd High School, as did many of his city's leadership class at that time. He held degrees in journalism and business from the University of Missouri at Columbia. He joined the staff of The Journal in 1934 as an advertising proof runner. He thereafter became an ad salesman, assistant bookkeeper, and a reporter. He became managing editor in December 1941, a position that he held until the senior Attaway's death in 1957.

[edit] Newspaper publisher

Former Journal editor George W. Shannon (1914-1998) said that Attaway, under whom he worked for some twenty-five years, was "a very active supporter of all good things in this community." Shannon recalled that Attaway was instrumental in drumming up support for construction of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, still the largest covered sports stadium in the nation.

Under Attaway, The Journal hired Lane Crockett, then a 26-year-old veteran of the Vietnam War, as its entertainment editor. He later moved to the Shreveport Times, where he was subsequently syndicated by Gannett for a decade for his writing about television and film.

In 1974, publisher Attaway named another Vietnam War veteran, then Shreveport Times reporter Stanley R. Tiner, as Journal editor. Tiner was retained as editor when the Shreveport businessman, professor, and philanthropist Charles T. Beaird bought the newspaper in 1976. Later, Tiner ran unsuccessfully for the United States Congress, but his Sun Herald newspaper in Biloxi-Gulfport, Mississippi, secured a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for Hurricane Katrina reporting.

Attaway and Shannon were political conservatives, and the Journal's editorial page was highly critical of liberal causes and personalities. Though most of its readers were Democrats, the Journal endorsed Republican candidates Charlton Lyons for governor and Barry Goldwater for U.S. President in 1964. It also endorsed the Republican David C. Treen in his losing gubernatorial bid in 1972. Beaird, a liberal Republican, and Tiner, a Democrat, moved the paper sharply to the left. The Journal ceased daily publication in 1991 and thereafter became part of the op-ed page to the Shreveport Times, the larger daily paper in the area, through the last day of 1999.

[edit] Civic organizations

Attaway was a member of the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce, and the original board of the Red River Navigation Association, a private trade association which successfully lobbied the Congress for navigation of the Red River from Alexandria to Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish and the largest city in northwestern Louisiana.

Attaway was affiliated with Kappa Alpha fraternity, Rotary International, Downtown Shreveport Unlimited, Coastal Gun Club, American Bowling Congress, Boy Scouts of America, the Shreveport Club, the Petroleum Club of Shreveport, American Newspaper Publishers Association, Texas Daily Newspaper Association, and Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. He was the 1968 Cotillion King of the annual Holiday In Dixie celebration. In 1965, he was named "Shreveport's Best Salesman".

[edit] Death and legacy

Attaway died at his home in the Fairfield section of Shreveport. He was survived by his wife of fifty-seven years, the former Marion Sailor (September 17, 1918 - December 14, 1999), originally from the Memphis, Tennessee, area; son, Douglas Wesley Attaway (born 1938) of Shreveport, and his wife, the former Sonya Shuler; daughters Susan Elizabeth Attaway of Shreveport and Diane Kathryn Attaway Bolen of Madill, Oklahoma; six grandchildren; one great-grandchild; a sister, Betty Attaway Wiemer (August 18, 1912 - July 7, 2007) of Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Betty Wiemer was married to Robert F. Wiemer, who was employed by Phillips Petroleum Company. Like her brother, she was a graduate of the premier journalism school in Columbia, Missouri. Attaway also had a nephew and a niece (twins), Dr. Robert Wiemer of Houston and Betsy W. McLoughlin, Ph.D., of Grand Junction, Colorado.

Services were held on February 24, 1994 in Osborn Funeral Home Chapel, with Dr. Jon Stubblefield of the First Baptist Church, where the Attaways were members, and Dr. John Rogers of the First Presbyterian Church officiating. Burial was in Forest Park Cemetery in Shreveport.

James A. "Jim" Van Hook, Sr., Attaway's friend since elementary school and the former attorney for the Journal, said that Attaway would "always be remembered for his unfailing politeness and his integrity."

The Attaways are remembered through the Douglas and Marion Attaway Professorships in Civic Culture at Methodist-affiliated Centenary College in Shreveport. He was also a member of the Centenary board of trustees. The Attaway professorships are awarded to intellectuals who have made notable contributions to the public discussion of ideas, not as academics but as public thinkers and communicators in the area of civic culture. In 1966, Attaway was co-chairman of Centenary’s Great Teachers-Scholars Fund.

He is also remembered by the Douglas F. and Marion S. Attaway Charitable Income Trust Fund and Doug Attaway Boulevard near Louisiana Highway 1 in Shreveport.