Induction Year: 2000

Henry C. Goodrich

  • October 11th, 2021

Henry C. Goodrich has had four careers.

The first was as an engineer, beginning with the U.S. Navy in the Civil Engineering Corps. He then joined Rust Engineering Company, where he worked in design, construction, and management. Then he became chairman and CEO of Inland Container Corporation in Indiana, and then it was back to Birmingham to head up Southern Natural Gas. He was one of the founders of BE&K, which is now one of the largest engineering firms in the country. And along the way, he created Richgood, a venture capital and investment company, and the Goodrich Foundation, his charitable giving foundation oriented primarily toward needs in the Birmingham area. And through it all, Henry C. Goodrich has had a good time.

Henry Calvin Goodrich was born in Fayetteville, Tennessee, in 1920, the son of Dr. Charles Goodrich and Maude Baxter Goodrich. He attended grade school and high school in Fayetteville and studied pre-med at Erskine College. But he decided engineering was more his line and in 1939, he enrolled at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Two years later Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the ensuing war was going badly for the United States and its allies. Students were under pressure to finish their studies and join the war effort, and that’s exactly what Goodrich did. A year after Pearl Harbor he finished at UT, where he was chosen for both business and engineering honor fraternities and selected as president of the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He finished his studies in 1942 and received his Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering in 1943.

After graduation, Goodrich enlisted in the Navy (he was already in the Naval Reserve) and was sent to Camp Perry, Virginia, a training area for Seabees. As a student at UT, he had met his future wife, Billie Grace, and the couple began making plans to marry. The wedding took place in Milan, Tennessee, on September 10, 1943. There was a quick one-night honeymoon and the couple headed back to Camp Perry. There was a period of training in Norfolk, Virginia, then a transfer to Monogram Field near Suffolk, Virginia. Goodrich began making plans to head overseas and Billie Grace returned to UT to finish her degree. His overseas duty was in Panama, where he served as an assistant public works officer at the naval air station.

In 1945, with the war winding down, Goodrich began looking for post-war employment and received a job offer from Daniel Construction Company in Birmingham to work as a field engineer on a new building in Gadsden, a job that would separate him from his wife and new son for long periods. But as luck would have it, while in Birmingham, he also stopped in to visit Rust Engineering, which also offered him a job. He explained the situation to Hugh Daniel, who understood the predicament. Goodrich went to work for Rust as a draftsman/ designer. In 1950 Goodrich moved from the drafting table to the sales office and began finding clients for Rust. As Goodrich began to “network” around Birmingham, business leaders began to recognize his talents and more invitations came his way to join the Birmingham Rotary Club, to become a director at Woodward Iron Company, to be on the board at Protective Life. The man from Tennessee had taken hold in Alabama.

In his first five years in sales at Rust, he brought on 64 contracts for Rust, and in 1956 he was named a vice president of the firm. In 1961 he was made a senior vice president and a member of the Rust board of directors, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company.

In 1967 Rust was sold to Litton Industries and Goodrich decided it was time to look for new challenges. He found them in the Hoosier State with Inland Container Corporation where he became executive vice president and director and moved his family to Indianapolis. One of his first moves at Inland was to build a new containerboard mill on the Tennessee River near ew Johnsonville, Tennessee, a state-of-the-art facility producing 300 tons per day of containerboard. The contract for the new plant went to Rust Engineering.

As he had in Birmingham, Goodrich sought out ways to serve Indianapolis as he had Birmingham, and he became active in several major civic activities. In 1969 he was elected president and chief executive officer of Inland. It was a busy time at Inland, but as always, Goodrich was never one to turn down an opportunity. So, when three old friends from Rust approached him to discuss starting an engineering firm, Goodrich listened. He agreed to help raise start-up money and in 1972, BE&K was born. In less than a year, the firm had landed a major contract and was on its way.

Inland continued to prosper and was on the Fortune 500 list. Goodrich was elected chairman of the board, and he began to spend more time at the family lake house on Lake Logan Martin near Birmingham and began to look for ways to make his exit from Inland. In 1978 Inland was acquired by Time, Inc. with Goodrich remaining in charge.

As Goodrich was relaxing at the Logan Martin Lakehouse, he received a call from John Shaw, president, and CEO of Southern Natural Resources, the huge Birmingham-based energy company on whose board Goodrich had served for seven years. At age 59, he was offered the job of president, and ultimately CEO, of Southern Natural Resources. Under Goodrich the company, renamed SONAT, set records for earnings, dividends increased and in 1981 Goodrich was named the top CEO in the gas pipelines industry.

In 1985 Goodrich retired from SONAT. Meanwhile, in Japan, the world’s largest enclosed semisubmersible offshore drilling rig was being constructed. And it was named the Henry Goodrich, for the chairman of SONAT Offshore (a SONAT subsidiary) and which was christened by Billie Grace Good rich.

Goodrich has held directorships in a host of companies, including SONAT, Inc., and subsidiaries; Time Incorporated, Ball Corporation, BE&K – Emeritus, Cousins Properties, Inc. – Emeritus, Temple-Inland Inc., Inland Steel, Indiana National Bank, Rust Engineering Company, and subsidiaries, Georgia-Kraft, Indiana Bell, BioCryst, Inc., Southern Research Technology, Protective Life Corporation, Woodward Iron Company, and Stokely-Van Camp.

His civic activities have included the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, the United Way of Birmingham, Community Chest of Indianapolis, Birmingham Council, Boy Scouts of America, Indian Springs School trustee, Salvation Army director, the University of Alabama at Birmingham President’s Council, director of Alabama Supercomputer Project, vice president and national trustee for the Birmingham Museum of Art and the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham.

He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and is registered as a professional engineer in 12 states. He is a member of the Newcomen Society and an emeritus member of the University of Tennessee Development Council, as well as a senior director for the UAB Research Foundation.

He received the Nathan W. Doughtery Award from the University of Tennessee College of Engineering and was Industry Man of the Year in Indianapolis in 1974. The following year he was named Papermaker of the Year by Pulp and Paper Magazine and received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Butler University. In 1978 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree from Marion College. Three years later, in 1981, he was chosen Best Chief Executive in Gas Industry. Two other honorary Doctor of Law degrees followed, from Birmingham-Southern College in 1985, and from UAB in 1986, the same year he was inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor and selected as one of 12 Outstanding Scientists and Engineers from Tennessee. He received the Silver Beaver Award from the Boy Scouts of America in 1987 and was inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame in 1991.

Bill L. Harbert

  • October 11th, 2021

Throw a dart at a map of the world and chances are you’ll hit a Bill Harbert construction project. Bill L. Harbert International Construction has been involved in projects ranging from renovating embassies in the Mideast to laying pipelines across South American rivers.

Bill LeBold Harbert, founder of Bill L. Harbert International Construction, based in Birmingham, was born in the Mississippi Delta in Indianola, Mississippi, on July 21, 1923, the son of John Murdoch Harbert and Mae Hamilton Schooling Harbert. His father was an engineer who moved his family to the Hollywood area of Birmingham in 1927, only to lose the home shortly thereafter in the Depression.

Harbert attended public schools in Birmingham, and eventually enrolled at Auburn University. World War II cut short his first trip to The Plains, however, and at age 20, in 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Infantry, K Company. He served in Europe from 1943 until 1946 and earned a Bronze Star for heroic or meritorious service. When Harbert returned to Alabama, he re-enrolled at Auburn University, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering in 1948. A few years later, in 1966, he attended the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business.

Bill Harbert got his start building swimming pools in Jasper. As a veteran, he was able to buy construction equipment at cheap prices and he obtained a contract to construct a series of swimming pools and other athletic facilities. And there was an added bonus. It was in Jasper that he met his wife, Joy Patrick, who died earlier this year. They were married in 1952 after seven years of dating. The couple has three children, Anne Harbert Moulton, Elizabeth

Harbert Cornay and Billy L. Harbert, Jr.

In 1949, he and his brother, John, formed Harbert Construction Corporation and Bill managed the company’s construction operations, both foreign and domestic. He served as executive vice president until 1979 and as president and chief executive officer of Harbert International, Inc., from 1979 until July 1990. He served as Vice Chairman of the Board from 1990 until December 1991, at which time he bought a majority of the international operations of Harbert International, Inc. He currently serves as chairman and CEO of Bill Harbert International Construction, Inc.

While the focus of Bill Harbert International Construction, Inc. is overseas work, the company has expanded in the past decade and is involved in several construction projects within the United States.

The overseas work has included such high-profile projects as a retail podium and parking structure for the Kuala Lumpur City Centre in Malaysia, the world’s tallest building, a $200 million-plus project. The firm has renovated embassies or consular offices in Hong Kong, New Delhi, Tanzania, and a number of former Soviet republics. The company has also been a leader in building and expanding water supply systems and water treatment systems in such countries as the Democratic Republic of Sudan, Puerto Rico, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Panama. Harbert has also been involved in renovating and building multinational force and observer camps in the Sinai and in airbase construction in the Negev Desert. Closer to home, Bill Harbert International Construction projects include the new Hoover High School under construction off Valleydale Road in Shelby County, several military projects in the Southeast, the Alabama Institute for Manufacturing Excellence at The University of Alabama, and condominiums along the Gulf Coast. Bill Harbert has also devoted much time and resources to his industry and his community. He will take over as president of the International PipeLine Contractors Association next year, having served as director for several years and as 2nd vice president. He also has served as president and director of the PipeLine Contractors Association, U.S.A. He has been a member of the Construction Indus­ try Presidents Forum since 1992 and a trustee and co-chairman of the Laborers’

National Pension Fund since 1968.

His affiliations with community organizations include director of the Birmingham Metropolitan Development Board; Newcomen Society of North America, Director, SouthTrust Corporation from 1979 until 1996, a director of the Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce, a board member of the Health Services Foundation, and a board member at AMI Brookwood Medical Center. He attends Canterbury United Methodist Church and is a member of Vestavia Country Club (President, 1976) and Riverchase Country Club (President, 1980). He served as director for the Birmingham Ballet and was on the board of the YMCA. He has been a member of the Birmingham Kiwanis Club since 1980 and is a member of the Monday Morning Quarterback Club.

He is currently on the Supporters Board of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. He and his wife Joy recently made a $1 million gift to UAB to establish the Joy and Bill Harbert Endowed Chair in Cancer Genetics. Mrs. Harbert, who graduated from The University of Alabama, served on the UAB School of Nursing Board of Visitors. Harbert also created the Mae Schooling Harbert Fund for Residents in Training to honor his mother.

Bill Harbert has never been one to seek the limelight, but he has left his mark around the world, and he has distinguished himself in business and public service. His intelligence and compassion for others are well known from the deserts of the Mideast to the boardrooms of Birmingham.

Harbert maintains a very active role in his company and heads for the office each morning he is in Birmingham. He plays tennis every afternoon he is in town and likes to fish when the opportunity arises.

Olin B. King

  • October 6th, 2021

Olin Berry King, founder, and chairman of SCI Systems, Inc. of Huntsville, has already decided on his epitaph: “You always knew where he stood.” Where King and his company stand, for starters, is at the top of the contract electronics manufacturing business.

SCI Systems, Inc., with 6,000 employees in Huntsville, is the city’s largest private employer and the state’s largest company. The company also has 37 plants in 17 countries and has 31,500 employees worldwide. The company had sales of more than $8 billion for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2000.

King started his business in 1961 in the basement of his south Huntsville home. He and two partners pooled their money – $21,000 – and formed Space Craft, Inc., and set out to design and build satellites. The company quickly became a major subcontractor, building components and instrumentation for NASA’s Saturn V rocket, the vehicle that launched man to the moon.

In the Vietnam War era, SCI made subsystems for military aircraft, then applied that experience to commercial aircraft. In 1976 SCI began making computer terminals for IBM. The big break came in 1981 when SCI began to make personal computers for IBM. Company sales rocketed from $46 million to $500 million by 1985.

SCI, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is today an $8 billion company that builds electronic products for companies such as Hewlett-Packard Co., and Nostel, as well as several hundred companies involved in the telecommunications, computer, medical, and defense industries.

King built SCI based on the principles of competitive cost, quality, reliability, and responsiveness. And with the daily advances in high tech, many people think the best days are yet ahead for SCI, called by Forbes magazine the “Kmart of the electronic industry.”

King is the son of George Olin King, a Methodist minister, and Elizabeth Berry King. He was born March 17, 1934, in Sandersville, Ga., in the state’s peanut growing region, but he and his family moved with his father’s ministry.

He eventually enrolled at North Georgia College in Dahlonega to study physics and mathematics, graduating at 19. Following his graduation, he spent two years of active duty; during the Korean War, he was a Signal Corps officer. He also took additional courses in engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University. He worked briefly as a design engineer at RCA, then moved to a position with the Army’s ballistic missile program, arriving in Huntsville in 1957. He spent the years between 1957 and 1961 helping build satellites and missiles with Werner von Braun. And then, at age 26, he went from engineer to entrepreneur, teaming with two partners to start Space Craft, Inc.

A key reason for SCI’s astounding success has been its flexibility. One of the firm’s first projects was a satellite for Johns Hopkins University. But the attention of the public and the government soon turned from satellites to scientific manned space programs and King and company began building electronic systems for the Saturn V rocket and other NASA and military missile projects.

When the space projects began to fade, King put the company to work building cockpit controls and other electronic systems for military aircraft.

In the mid-1970s, several large companies such as Hewlett Packard and IBM began looking for answers to the highly competitive challenge of manufacturing electronic products. One answer was to contract with firms such as SCI to build the external equipment the companies designed. The company turned heads across the world when IBM chose it as the primary manufacturer for its original personal computer. The electronic products manufacturing business has mushroomed in the past two decades and shows no indication of slowing.

To meet the growing demand for electronic components and products, King and SCI embarked on an expanded growth program. It has more than six million square feet of manufacturing space in 17 countries across Europe, the North Americas, and Asia and has other facilities under construction.

In 1968, King married his wife, Shelbie, with whom he has raised four children – Elizabeth Smith, George King, Rosemary Lee, and Jay Hoyle, three of whom live in Huntsville. The couple also has six grandchildren who all live in Huntsville.

As you would expect, King has spent a lot of time in the air, traveling to all parts of the globe. Still, he has managed to include in his busy schedule a variety of other business activities, including directorships at Regions Financial Corporation and Regions Bank of Huntsville. He has held directorships with Interfinancial, Abbott Medical Electronics Company, Baker Automation Systems, Deltacom, and Adelantos de Tecnologia, S.A. de C.V. He is a partner in Valley Telephone Services, Inc. and has been active in real estate development in the Huntsville/Madison County area.

He is a member of the Board of Trustees, The University of Alabama System, and member of the University of Alabama in Huntsville Foundation.

He is a founding trustee of the Alabama Heritage Trust Fund, a founding director of the Alabama Supercomputer Network Authority, has been a member of the Governor’s Task Force on Economic Recovery, and a member of the Council of Twenty-One of the Alabama Commission on High Education, and has served as a director of the Alabama Research Institute.

His civic activities include serving as a founding member and past chairman of the Research Park Board of the City of Huntsville, director of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, the Huntsville Museum of Art, and the Huntsville Symphony, and a founding director of the Huntsville Hospital Foundation.

He was selected Alabama’s Chief Executive Officer of the Year by The Birmingham News in 1998 and won the Huntsville Madison County Chamber of Commerce’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, in 1994. In 1984 he was named the National Management Association’s Executive of the Year, and in 1997, he was named by Electronic Buyers News, a leading trade journal, as one of “25 industry executives who made a difference,” which called him “the father of the contract electronic manufacturing services industry.”

His hobbies include collecting antiques for his Greek Revival style antebellum home located in Huntsville’s Twickenham Historic District, and he and his wife enjoy entertaining.

King has remained loyal to the city of Huntsville and the red soil and cotton fields that surround it. “I would say that Huntsville has proved fertile soil in which to grow business as well as cotton,” he said.

Despite the changes and the volatility of the electronic boom and the ups and downs of high-tech stocks, Olin King has remained a constant at SCI, focusing on increasing sales, holding down costs, pleasing shareholders, maintaining quality, and being responsive to customer needs.

King recently stepped down as chief executive officer and board chairman in a low-key, matter-of-fact manner that has been a hallmark of his management style. At that time, he was interviewed by The Huntsville Times and was asked, “When you started SCI 38 years ago in your basement, did you ever envision it becoming an $8 billion company ranked No. 245 on the Fortune 500?”

“Yes,” King replied. “I just didn’t think it would take this long.”

Harry H. Pritchett

  • October 6th, 2021

Every day scores of young golfers, many of them students at The University of Alabama, tee off at the Harry Pritchett Golf Course in east Tuscaloosa. But few of them realize the legacy and the golfing prowess of the man for whom the course is named. But make no mistake; Harry H. Pritchett was a man of high accomplishment, both in the business world and in the golfing community.

Harry Houghton Pritchett was born June 28, 1909, in Montgomery, where his mother, Kate Louise Powers Pritchett, was temporarily living after the sudden and untimely death of his father, Edward Hill Pritchett. Mrs. Pritchett returned to Tuscaloosa shortly after his birth and Pritchett attended Tuscaloosa schools.

Pritchett began playing golf at the age of 12. At The University of Alabama, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry in 1930, Pritchett was one of the top golfers in the South and in the old Southern Conference, playing four years with the Crimson Tide varsity golf team. He won the Southern Intercollegiate title in 1928 and went on to win the Alabama Amateur title twice. Later in his career, he was the Alabama Senior Golf tournament champion and won the medal for low score in the Southern Amateur tournament. He played in the United States Amateur Championship twice. He was a formidable competitor and a supreme shot-maker who struck his irons with marksman-like accuracy.

“I’ll tell you something,” Pritchett once told a newspaper reporter. “I haven’t meant much to golf, but golf has meant the world to me. I have met some truly wonderful people thanks to this game.”

In fact, he credited golf for helping him land his first post-college job, as a chemist with T.J. Moss Tie Company, a creosote fire, in Columbus, Mis­sissippi at $85 a month. He was playing golf one afternoon in Tuscaloosa and mentioned to a fel­low player that he was looking for work. The other player needed a chemist and Pritchett was hired on the spot.

Pritchett left Columbus and moved to Maplesville where he was engaged in the lumber business. After a major fire at the mill and the complete loss by fire of the apart­ment where he lived with his new bride, Margaret (Sis) Partlow, he sold his interest in the business and moved back to Tuscaloosa, where he began a long and lucrative career in real estate and insurance in 1936. He opened Pritchett Insurance Company and in 1940 was joined by Marlin Moore. The business later became Pritchett-Moore, Inc., a real estate, and insurance company that is a Tuscaloosa landmark. Later he was a found­ing partner and secretary-treasurer of Creative Displays, Inc. of Tuscaloosa.

A Pritchett friend, Harvey Edwards, Sr., said his friend was “never short on doing all he could in civic matters. Always he was ready and willing and did an able job at whatever he undertook. He did a great many things under difficulties.”

For more than 40 years, Pritchett helped mold many of the institutions of Tuscaloosa. He served on the City Board of Education for 30 years, helping to lead the city school sys­tem and The University of Alabama through the integration crisis of the 1960s with moral courage and dignity.

Morris Sokol, a fellow civic leader who served with Pritchett on many civic boards and projects, said at Pritchett’s death: “He is one of the outstanding persons I have ever known. He was talented and not only gave, but he worked for everything good for the community and its people.”

Sokol recalled Pritchett’s leadership role during the integration crisis. “He was moving out front, telling everybody what his feelings and his ideals were when so very many were afraid to open their mouths about it.” Pritchett appeared on national televi­sion asking local community leaders to practice restraint and abide by the law.

He also headed the Tuscaloosa Chamber of Commerce and other civic organizations during the post-war development explo­sion. His professional activities included serving as president of the Alabama Asso­ciation of Mutual Insurance Agencies and of the Alabama Real Estate Association, which named him Realtor of the Year. He organized and served as the first president of the Tuscaloosa Board of Realtors.

In 1949 he was named Citizen of the Year in Tuscaloosa. He was a past president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce and of the United Way of Tuscaloosa County. He was a member of the boards of directors of Alabama Gas Corporation, the First National Bank of Tuskaloosa, and the Alabama Chamber of Commerce.

In 1965 Pritchett received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award for service to The Uni­versity. He was a member of the president’s cabinet of the University and was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree in 1979 and the Liberty Bell Law Award in 1981.

He headed the fundraising campaign to build the University Law Center. In 1979 the University of Alabama National Alumni Association named him distinguished alumnus of the year.

In 1978, the Board of Trustees of The University of Alabama System approved naming the university golf course in his honor and a resolution confirming the honor was approved by the state Legislature. He repaid the game he loved by serving as president of the Alabama Golf Association, the Southern Golf Association, and the Alabama Senior Golf Association.

Pritchett was an active and longtime sup­porter of historic preservation efforts, and served on the Alabama Sesquicentennial Commission in 1969, as co-chairman of the Tuscaloosa County Bicentennial Commission and as a member of the Heritage Commission of Tuscaloosa County.

Pritchett was married to the former Margaret (Sis) Partlow, whom he met at Sunday School at the First Methodist Church. They were high school sweethearts and married shortly after college. They had four children: the Very Reverend Harry H. Pritchett, Jr., Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City; Mrs. Margaret “Boo” Privett of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida; Mrs. Katie Mitchell of Decatur, Alabama, and Mrs. Kathleen “Kat” Quarles, of Tuscaloosa. All are graduates of The Uni­versity of Alabama. The Pritchetts were members of Christ Episcopal Church where he served on the Vestry and as senior warden for several years.

Pritchett was a longtime member of Indian Hills Country Club, and he developed his game at the nine-hole Riverside Course in Tuscaloosa and at Tuscaloosa Country Club. At Indian Hills, he was a member of a golfing group facetiously called “The Gangsters.” Shortly after Pritchett’s death in 1981, a fellow golfer told The Tuscaloosa News, “When you open up the rules book to that page where it talks about golf being a gentleman’s game, that’s where you’ll find Harry Pritchett’ s name.” A gentleman on the golf course and a gentleman of the business community.

Frederic William Sington

  • October 6th, 2021

The name “Fred Sington” says it all.

Name an award, he received it. Name a charity, he helped it. Name a civic organization, he was a member. Name a sport, he excelled at it. In fact, one sports columnist went so far as to describe Sington as “almost a mythic sports figure,” and “a ubiquitous civic worker.”

Somewhere along the line, he became known as “Mr. Birmingham,” and no title has ever been more fitting. At one point, Sington estimated that he had been involved with as many as 200 civic and community activities over the years, but that is probably an underestimate.

Fred Sington was born in Birmingham, February 14, 1910, the son of Max and Hallye Spiro Sington. He attended Phillips High School where he was a four-year letterman in football, basketball, baseball, and track, and was inducted into the National Honor Society. He then attended The University of Alabama, where he was a member of Alabama’s 1931 Rose Bowl team and an All-American tackle for three straight years, as well as a three-year letterman and All-American in baseball. The big tackle was generally regarded as the best lineman in the entire country. He was a member of Zeta Beta Tau social fraternity, ODK, and Phi Beta Kappa. He was vice president of the student body, and in 1931 received both the Porter Award for Best Athlete and the PanHellenic Award for Best Student. And he was just getting started.

Following his graduation in 1931, he became an assistant football coach at Duke University before embarking on a distinguished career in professional sports. For the next 10 years, he played professional baseball with the Atlanta Crackers, the Washington Senators, and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Following his playing days, he was an SEC official in football for 20 years.

When World War II began, Sington, of course, was there to help. He entered the Navy and served as a lieutenant junior grade from 1942 until 1946. He even coached the Oklahoma Navy Zoomers football team.

After the war, in 1947, Sington began his business career, Fred Sington Sporting Goods, opening a store in downtown Birmingham on Fifth Avenue North. His sporting goods business eventually spread into Homewood, Huntsville, Mountain Brook, Gadsden, Athens, and Scottsboro. In 1986 he sold his sporting goods business to Hibbett Sporting Goods but remained with the firm as a sales consultant.

Sington developed a reputation as a fine public speaker, which served him well as he became involved in the civic fiber of the city. He served on the Birmingham Civic Center Planning Committee, was chairman of the Downtown Birmingham YMCA, president of the Birmingham Kiwanis, and captain of the Monday Morning Quarterback Club. He was president of the Birmingham Football Foundation. At a meeting of the Hall of Fame directors, he proposed a Hall of Fame Bowl for Birmingham. The board agreed and the first Hall of Fame Bowl was played in Birmingham in 1977. The game later become the All-American Bowl and continued for several years. In 1972 he was president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce. He belonged to the “A” Club, Grand Order of the Krewe, Masons, and Shriners.

He served as a board member for the Salvation Army, Sertoma Foundation, City Federal Savings, and Loan Association, Vulcan Life Insurance Company, Junior Achievement, and the Boy Scout Council. His service reached beyond the city limits, as he served as president of the Alabama State Fair Authority; a coach for the Alabama Mentally Retarded Olympics, president of The University of Alabama National Alumni Association; a member of the President’s Council, The University of Alabama; a member of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame Racing Committee; and as state chairman of the Alabama Heart Fund in 1978. His professional memberships included serving as president and treasurer of the National Sporting Goods Association and as chairman of the organization’s Hall of Fame Committee.

Throughout his entire career he was recognized for the time and effort he gave on behalf of others. He was elected to the National Football Hall of Fame in 1955 and received The University of Alabama Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1967. In 1970 he was awarded the Pat Trammell Award for distinguished service to the University, and in 1972 was the Junior Achievement Man of the Year and was awarded the Erskine Ramsey Award for distinguished service to the Birmingham area. That same year he was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, and two years later, the Southern Athletic Hall of Fame. In 1976 The University of Alabama conferred on him the honorary degree, doctor of humane letters. In 1978 he was named Sertoma Man of the Hour.

Sington and his wife, Nancy, were married 62 years and were included in a book titled “Marriages Meant to Be,” which featured stories about 14 couples who met and married. The union produced three sons, Fred Jr., David, and Leonard, seven grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Fred Sington is remembered and recognized by many for his athletic and civic accomplishments, for his sense of humor, and for his love for his community. His memory is particularly cherished by the winners of the Sington Soaring Spirit Award, presented by The Lakeshore Foundation, which serves people with disabilities. The organization’s newsletter published a special tribute to Sington. The Sington Soaring Spirit Dinner, named in his honor, is held annually to help benefit children and adults with physical disabilities.

No doubt the Sington saga will be told and retold many times in the years to come.

Fred Sington is said to have had a slogan: “If you don’t swing, you can’t hit.” When it came to helping people, Fred Sington was Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and Hank Aaron rolled into one.

Ernest G. Williams

  • October 6th, 2021

When Ernest Going Williams was selected to receive The University of Alabama’s Distinguished Alumni Award, The Tuscaloosa News, in a congratulatory editorial, said Williams “joins the ranks of UA legends… ”

Indeed, his service to the University, to his community, and to humanity, in general, is legendary.

Paper company executive, University treasurer and trustee, banker, and all-around outstanding citizen, Williams’ roots go deep into the soil of the Southeast. His ancestors journeyed to Alabama from North Carolina in 1817 and played prominent roles in the development of the territory. His great-grandfather, Nicholas Gaines Augustus, was a Mississippi planter and attended The University of Alabama in the 1840s. His father was an owner of Consolidated Lumber Company, which had sawmills throughout Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. and Mary Sanford Williams. He was named for his step-grandfather, Alfred Ernest Going, Jr. The family moved to Tuscaloosa when Ernest was five.

Williams was born in Macon, Mississippi, on September 24, 1915, the son of Augustus Gaines

Ernest Williams attended Tuscaloosa schools and graduated in 1938 from The University of Alabama with a Bachelor of Science degree in commerce and business administration. As a student, he was a member of the Excelsior and Philomathic literary societies, the Cotillion Club, Quadrangle, Jasons, and Omicron Delta Kappa. One of his greatest interests was the Kappa Alpha Fraternity, the members of which bestowed on him the title of “Boss,” which has stayed with him as he served on the National Executive Council of Kappa Alpha Order.

In 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the beginning of World War II, he sought and was accepted into the Navy’s officer training program at Notre Dame and Northwestern University and was commissioned as an ensign. He served as communications and deck officer aboard the U.S.S. Kaskaskia, a fleet oiler and as a communications officer aboard the U.S.S. Severn in the South Pacific. After three years of active duty, he was released at the end of the war and returned to Tuscaloosa and a position as assistant treasurer at the University. He soon was elected treasurer and established a reputation for fairness and openness, as well as for shrewdness in financial matters. During his tenure, he negotiated several loans that were used to build student dormitories and fraternity and sorority houses. He also promoted a plan that allowed faculty members to obtain housing loans at a 5 percent fixed-rate, with no closing costs and no prepayment penalty. Many young faculty members can thank Ernest Williams for helping them finance their first home.

The 1950s proved to be eventful times for Ernest Williams. In 1951 he married Cecil Butler of Jacksonville, Florida, who he met while she was visiting her sister in Tuscaloosa. He was becoming active in the community, as president of the University Club, the Junior Chamber of Commerce, and the Exchange Club. But all was not roses.

As Williams was working one afternoon in 1956, an unruly crowd gathered in front of the education building next door to Williams’ office to protest the attendance of Autherine Lucy, the first black student admitted to UA. Another UA official approached Williams for help in getting Miss Lucy out of the building unharmed. He left his office and went upstairs in the education building where Miss Lucy waited. Williams surveyed the situation for several minutes until the mob’s attention was diverted, then escorted Miss Lucy downstairs to a waiting police car, which rushed her away unharmed. So, what did Williams do? He went back to work. “I had a long line of students waiting to get their fees deferred,” he told the news media later.

Later that year, Williams left the University and joined First National Bank of Tuscaloosa as a vice president and member of the board. But the University recognized the importance of having Williams close at hand and in August 1956, he was elected to the Board of Trustees and became the school’s third local trustee.

In 1958 Williams resigned his position at the bank and became vice president for finance and treasurer at Gulf States Paper and a member of its board of directors.

In 1977, Williams left the Gulf States and organized Affiliated Paper Companies, where he became chairman and chief executive officer. The Tuscaloosa company-owned paper houses in Texas, North and South Carolina, and Florida as well as Anniston and Huntsville in Alabama. It also was affiliated with 85 additional companies. Under his leadership for 17 years, the corporation grew to 264 affiliated companies with total sales of more than $2.2 billion in 1994, the year Williams retired at age 78.

Williams’ tenure as a trustee of The University of Alabama spanned 30 years, 26 of which were on the executive committee. His service ended in 1986 at age 70.

A highlight of his service to the University came in 1957 when he chaired a selection committee to search for a new football coach.

Paul W. Bryant was high on the list and Williams, along with Dr. Frank Rose, Fred Sington, and Marc Ray Clement persuaded Bryant to return to the Capstone.

Williams has been honored as Tuscaloosa’s Outstanding Citizen in 1973; by the University’s Board of Trustees with a dinner and resolution of appreciation on his retirement; as the recipient of an honorary LL.D. degree from the University in 1987; and by induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor in 1987.

He is an elder at First Presbyterian Church of Tuscaloosa, and a past chairman of the Tuscaloosa County American Red Cross and past president of Associated Industries of Alabama, Chamber of Commerce of Greater Tuscaloosa, DCH Foundation, Exchange Club, JayCees, United Way, the University Club, and YMCA. He also is a member of the Newcomen Society of North America and is listed in Who’s Who in America.

Throughout his career, his wife, Cecil, has been at his side. The couple has made significant gifts to The University of Alabama, including the Cecil B. and Ernest G. Williams Faculty Enhancement Fund. They have three children, Ernest Sanford, Turner Butler, and Elizabeth Cecil (CeCe), and nine grandchildren.

In February of 1999, the University presented Williams the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, which recognizes excellence of character and service to humanity. The tribute said:

“Ernest Williams is without peer in the annals of The University of Alabama. Some individuals can earn distinction as outstanding students; others, as alumni, achieve greatness in professional careers. Then there are those who serve their alma mater as trustees and benefactors. Ernest Williams has scaled the pinnacle of every category in a lifetime of service to the Capstone that spans more than half a century.”

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