[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 131 (Monday, September 19, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                 IN TRIBUTE TO MRS. JEAN GANNETT HAWLEY

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment today to 
remember Jean Gannett Hawley, publisher and chairman of Guy Gannett 
Communications, who died Sunday, September 4. She was 70. Her company 
publishes several newspapers in my home State of Maine, including the 
State's largest daily and Sunday paper, and is also involved in radio 
and television in Maine.
  When Mrs. Hawley took over the company from her father in 1954, she 
was the youngest women in the Nation to head a newspaper company, but 
she plunged headlong into this ancient bastion of male domination 
without an ounce of trepidation. A friend recently recalled that she 
never allowed anyone to refer to her as a chairwoman or a chairperson. 
The word was ``chairman'' and she stuck with it. Besides, she was much 
too busy pushing her newspapers to higher and higher standards of 
quality to worry much about semantics.
  Her unique position as a woman in a sea of men might have made her 
either timid or a tiger. But true to her nature, she always found a 
balance: she was aware of her position of power but never abused it. 
And neither did she let herself be rolled over or taken lightly as a 
woman leader in an industry where there were--and still are--very few.
  Her primary mission in life was to make her newspapers the best they 
could be and then push them beyond that plateau. Nothing gave her more 
satisfaction. She demanded high quality writing, aggressive reporting, 
a newspaper that reflected the community it served. But above all she 
demanded fairness, impartiality and honesty--and her newspapers have 
always demonstrated that vision.
  Over my 35 years of serving the people of Maine, I came to know and 
respect Mrs. Hawley. I saw embodied in her many of the qualities that I 
think make Maine the wonderful and unique State it is. She was a 
fiercely independent woman, a public figure who treasured her privacy. 
She was an overwhelmingly giving person, a community leader proud of 
her involvement in civic organizations and charities. She was also 
extraordinarily loyal--to her employees, to her readers, to the people 
of Maine, and to her family. Opportunities came and went to sell the 
company to larger entities, perhaps at a large profit, but she never 
forgot that hers was a family business and she kept it that way even as 
it grew. She was a woman of great wit and great humility, self-
confident, and modest, a woman who set an example for generations of 
Mainers.
  I join with the people of Maine in mourning the death of Jean Gannett 
Hawley and send my heartfelt best wishes to her family. She was a 
person for whom our State's motto might have been written: The way life 
should be.

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