[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 17 (Thursday, February 4, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E158]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HONORING THE LIFE OF M. HOLLIS CURL

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. JO BONNER

                               of alabama

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, February 4, 2010

  Mr. BONNER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my deep personal 
sadness at the passing of M. Hollis Curl, a longtime friend, an award 
winning journalist, and perhaps Wilcox County, Alabama's greatest 
advocate.
  Hollis, the editor and publisher of The Wilcox Progressive Era in my 
hometown of Camden, Alabama, passed away on February 2, 2010 at the age 
of 74.
  It's been said that real newspapermen bleed ink. I have no doubt that 
Hollis would fit into that category. While he would downplay his life's 
work as mere ``newspapering,'' no one could ever question that Hollis 
was a consummate professional born with a lifetime love for print 
journalism and a remarkable passion for his community.
  Hollis began his ``newspapering'' career as a young man by hawking 
copies of his hometown paper, The Red Bay News, from a shoeshine stand. 
During World War II, his family moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he 
got a paper route carrying the Knoxville News Sentinel. Not satisfied 
with selling other people's papers, he soon started his own 
neighborhood publication--a single sheet which he sold for five cents a 
copy.
  Hollis attended Ole Miss and following college, he worked at 
newspapers in Tennessee before returning to Alabama in 1960 to join The 
Dothan Eagle. From there, he moved to Butler, where he served as 
publisher for The Choctaw Advocate and began winning awards from the 
Alabama Press Association (APA). He purchased The Choctaw Advocate in 
1968, and later, he co-owned The Demopolis Times.
  In 1969, he and his wonderful wife, Glenda, bought The Wilcox 
Progressive Era in Camden, a newspaper that decades earlier had been in 
my family. Throughout the years, Hollis Curl also owned newspapers in 
Montevallo and Marion.
  Hollis gained national recognition in 1997 when he was selected by 
Sigma Delta Chi as the first weekly newspaper editor to receive the 
Ethics in Journalism Award presented at the National Press Club in 
Washington, D.C. In addition, the Alabama Press Association awarded 
Hollis with its first Lifetime Achievement Award.
  Over his four-decade-long career in Camden, Hollis took more than a 
few politicians to task on his editorial page and in his award-winning, 
weekly column, ``For What It's Worth.'' A proud and lifelong Democrat, 
Hollis penned the very first editorial endorsement for my candidacy for 
Congress back in 2002, even though I was running as a Republican in a 
congressional district that was different from his own.
  Hollis was perhaps best known to those outside of Wilcox County for 
the national publicity he received for his tireless efforts to restore 
ferry service to Gee's Bend, Alabama--an area that for nearly 40 years 
had been isolated from the county seat of Camden. The resumption of the 
ferry--which took many years of hard lobbying on the part of local 
residents, backed by Hollis' powerful voice--meant the prospect of a 
better life for many.
  Madam Speaker, I join all of Wilcox County--and everyone else who was 
privileged to call Hollis a friend--in expressing my deepest sympathies 
to his wife, Glenda, their children, Mark and Julie, and their 
grandchildren. Thank you for sharing this extraordinary person with us 
for all these years. You all are in our prayers.

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