Douglas F. Attaway

Douglas Fisher Attaway, Jr., known as Doug Attaway (September 10, 1910 – February 21, 1994), was the president and publisher from 1957 to 1976 of the since defunct Shreveport Journal, a daily newspaper in northwest Louisiana. He was chairman of the board of KSLA-TV, the Shreveport CBS affiliate from 1966 until the channel was sold in 1979 to Viacom. He was a former chairman of the board of Newspaper Production Company and the Attaway Newspaper Group, Inc.

Journalism career

Born in Shreveport to The Journal publisher Douglas Attaway, Sr. (1878-1957), and the former Bessie Fisher (1884–1967), Attaway graduated from C.E. Byrd High School in Shreveport and held degrees in journalism and business from the University of Missouri at Columbia, Missouri. In 1934, he joined the staff of The Journal as an advertising proof runner. He became an ad salesman, assistant bookkeeper, reporter, and then managing editor in December 1941,^[1] a position which he held until his father's death in 1957. Attaway succeeded his father as the president and publisher of The Journal and remained at the helm until the paper was sold in 1976.^[2] From 1953 to 1971, the conservative journalist George W. Shannon was the editor of The Journal.

In 1972, Attaway wrote an article on a total eclipse, the phenomenon in which the moon totally blocks out the rays of the sun, which occurred on July 10 of that year. Attaway and his long-term photo editor, Jack Barham, traveled to New York City to observe the two-minute eclipse and located their most desirable point of view beyond the Verrazano Bridge in the Atlantic Ocean.^[3]

In 1974, two years before he sold The Journal to the industrialist and philanthropist Charles T. Beaird, Attaway recruited Stanley R. Tiner from The Times as the editor of The Journal. In time, Tiner and Beaird moved the editorial position of The Journal far to the political left, whereas it had been conservative and earlier segregationist under Attaway.

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 Congress for navigation of the Red River from Alexandria to Shreveport, a program pushed by members of the Louisiana congressional delegation, particularly, U.S. Representative Joe D. Waggonner of Louisiana's 4th congressional district.

Attaway was affiliated with Kappa Alpha Order 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".

Death and legacy

Attaway died at his home in the historic Fairfield section of Shreveport. He was survived by his wife of fifty-seven years, the former Marion Sailor (1918–1999); son, Douglas Wesley Attaway, and daughters Susan Elizabeth Attaway and Diane Kathryn Attaway Bolen.

The Attaways are remembered through the Douglas and Marion Attaway Professorships in Civic Culture at Centenary College, where he was a trustee. Rose Van Thyn, a survivor of the Holocaust, held one of the fellowships. There is also the Douglas F. and Marion S. Attaway Charitable Income Trust Fund and Doug Attaway Boulevard near Louisiana Highway 1 in Shreveport.

The Attaways are interred in Section V, Block 162, at the large Forest Park East Cemetery in Shreveport.

References

• "2003 Annual Report" (PDF). The Community Foundation of Shreveport-Bossier. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2005-01-19.