James B. Boone, Jr., grew up in Tuscaloosa during interesting and tumultuous times, both in the newspaper business and in the civic life of the South. His father, Buford Boone, the courageous publisher of The Tuscaloosa News and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished editorial writing, made impassioned pleas for justice and reason during the first attempt to integrate The University of Alabama.
As chairman of the board, and majority stockholder of Boone Newspapers, Inc., James B. Boone, Jr.’s company owns and manages newspapers and shopping guides in 35 communities in Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. He has adhered to values set down by his father. His newspapers are recognized as among the best edited and managed in the industry.
Born in Macon, Georgia, to Buford and Frances Herin Boone, Boone got his early education in Tuscaloosa and attended The University of Alabama’s school of commerce and business administration, graduating in 1958. His newspaper training began early, as he worked at the Tuscaloosa News while a high school and college student.
On graduation from UA, Boone was employed and guided by the legendary Carmage Walls, a leading newspaper group publisher of his era and a long-time friend and associate of Boone’s father. With Walls, he served at newspapers in Georgia, Texas, and Virginia, including seven years as editor and publisher of The Suffolk (Virginia) News-Herald.
Boone returned to Tuscaloosa in 1968, succeeding his father and purchasing controlling interest from his parents in Tuscaloosa Newspapers Inc., publisher of The Tuscaloosa News under lease from Public Welfare Foundation. He began acquiring newspapers in 1970. He cancelled the Tuscaloosa News lease in 1981 and the foundation sold The News several years later to its present owner, the New York Times Company.
“We seek to produce the highest-quality product that the economics of the community served can support,” Boone has said. “And then, by ingenuity and imagination, we strive for a higher quality in an effort to serve and build that community.”
Included are numerous newspaper organizations. He is past president of Tuscaloosa organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, the DCH Regional Medical Center Foundation, the Tuscaloosa Academy Board of Trustees, the United Way, the YMCA, the Park and Recreation Authority Board and the Journalism Foundation of the Alabama Press Association. Boone served two communities as United Way drive chairman and served on the Vestry of Christ Episcopal Church.
He retired this year from the board of Regions Financial Corporation, where he was chairman of the corporate governance committee, and he is a member of the board of directors of Regions Bank – Tuscaloosa, and also serves on the board of directors of Randall Publishing Company.
He has won a number of awards, including the Julia and Henry Tutwiler award from UA, where he also has been inducted into the Communications Hall of Fame. The West Alabama Chamber of Commerce has inducted him into the Civic Hall of Fame and he was awarded the Casey Award from the University of Minnesota for newspaper industry leadership.
The assistance he has provided UA is without parallel. He serves on the President’s Cabinet and the National Advisory Board and was a member of the steering committee for the Campaign for Alabama. He is a member of the Board of Visitors for both the College of Communication and Information Sciences and the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration. Funding full-tuition scholarships for deserving college students has been a prime interest for him, and he has provided a number each year for the last 25 years. In recognition of his wise counsel and unstinting service, The University of Alabama presented him with the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.
Boone’s business philosophy is as principled as it is simple. He writes: “Our aim, when our product is compared to another’s in a comparable market, is to be judged superior. The communities we serve deserve no less, and doing so is vital to the future of that community and our company.”
He recently was honored by the Alabama Press Association with a Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes outstanding service and accomplishments spanning a career in journalism in Alabama. Boone is married to Carolyn Farrior Boone. He has two sons, Kenneth S. Boone and J. Buford Boone III, and three daughters, Martha B. Cobbold, Caroline F. Boone and Catherine G. Boone.
