1877 – 2005 The Rice Years
The Forester, established in 1877, was Huntsville’s leading weekly community newspaper for over 125 years. By the early 2000s it boasted an average paid weekly circulation of over 8000 copies, reaching people’s mail boxes and corner stores on Wednesday morning – paper day! CFBK read on air that week’s headlines and people eagerly flipped the pages looking for the names and faces of those they knew, those in the police report and those who had died. Parents clipped their kids’ pictures from the pages for keepsake. Area correspondents reported on the happenings in the Forester’s surrounding communities. In those days the weekly newspaper was the heart of the town. A successful newspaper gave way to a vibrant community, and vice versa.
Passed down through five generations of the Rice family, the Forester owes its success to a few guiding principles established by the founders, Harmon E. Rice and George Hutcheson Sr.
H.E, as he was fondly called by everyone who knew him, believed that the pages of a community newspaper should reflect the community it serves; should be full of pictures and the names of people and their achievements; should be accessible and affordable; and that in a small town the personal element is so strong that much harm can be done by swinging an editorial sledge hammer, rather, gentle suggestion, support and guidance are far more affective.
The fine editors who followed H.E. believed that too. Paul Rice, Garth Thomas, Ev Van Duuren, and Bruce Hickey, shared the vision that the Forester’s pages needed to reflect the community and build on its successes. Sharing in those duties were all the talented people working on reporting, sales, production, distribution and accounting. Special mention to the sports’ coverage over the years by Brent Cooper, Tom Wilson, Garth Thomas and Mike Greaves. And to the community news coverage by Tamara de la Vega, Gillian Brunette, Jennifer Brown and Mel Malton.
If it happened in Huntsville, you read about it in The Huntsville Forester. If it didn’t happen in the correct way, or quickly enough, or on budget, you also read about it in The Huntsville Forester. For over 125 years the Huntsville Forester was Huntsville’s newspaper and it successfully reflected, promoted and helped build a vibrant community.