Biography:

Editor, publisher. Born– April 8, 1935, Anniston. Parents– Harry Mell and Edel (Ytterboe) Ayers. Married– Josephine Peoples Ehringhaus, December 9, 1961. Children– One. Education– University of Alabama, A.B., 1959; attended Harvard University  as a Nieman Fellow,  1967-1968. Reporter for the Raleigh (N.C.) Times, 1960-1962; Washington correspondent for the Timmons Agency, 1962-1964; editor and publisher of the Anniston Star, 1968-2017; Chair, Consolidated Publications Co., 1998.  Commentator, NPR “Morning Edition.”  Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Board of the Southern Center for International Studies, and the International Fulbright Board. Founder and president of the L.O.C. Lamar Society. Received the Human Relations Award from the American Jewish Committee in 1977; elected to the Alabama Academy of Honor, 1991; to the University of Alabama Communications Hall of Fame,2000.

Source:

Who’s Who in the South and Southwest, 1973-1974; Marquis Who’s Who online.

Publications;

In Love with Defeat: The Making of a Southern Liberal.  Montgomery: New South Books, 2012.

Editor:

You Can’t Eat Magnolias. New York; McGraw-Hill, 1972.

Contributor:

A Bicentennial Portrait of the American People. New York; Simon & Schuster, 1975.

The Southern Mystique. University, Ala.; University of Alabama Press, 1977.