Scroll to info on Shelby Foote book or to Henry Stuart Foote of Vanderbilt

Avon Edward Foote
[chotank@aol.com or aefoote@una.edu]
(Æ or Ð or Eddie)

From old edition of Who's Who in South and Southwest
with 2009 editing for Internet display

FOOTE, AVON EDWARD, radio and television producer, communications educator, born Burnsville, Mississippi in Tishomingo County, September 24, 1937; son of Avon Ruble Foote and Lila Broughton Foote; B.S. in Mathematics, Florence State College, 1963; M.S. in Communications, University of Southern Mississippi, 1968; Ph.D. in Speech Communications (electronic media production and management), The Ohio State University, 1970; married March 15, 1960, Dorothy Veronica Gargis, Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Administration [French Huguenot spelling of family name "Garrigues or Garrigus", that is often-represented surname in the Paris, France, phone book. The current host of CBS Sunday Morning miscalled the Shoals surname -- "Garvis" -- when he thanked in 2005 the Footes at award luncheon in the Grand Hyatt, New York, for their support of the Library of American Broadcasting.]; children of Dottie and Eddie: Anthony Edward, Kevin Avon and Veronica Michele; Avon's employment history: Announcer, Station WJOI, Florence, Alabama, 1958 to 1960 [Joe Van Sandt later sold this station to a buyer who then sold it to Sam Phillips, and his family still owns it.]; production manager, Station WOWL-TV, Florence, 1960 to 1964 [This station was owned by Richard Biddle and Jack Worley.]; advertising coordinator and writer, Plough Inc., Memphis, 1964 to 1966 before returning to university for graduate study; campus radio adviser and parttime instructor, University Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, 1966 to 1967; producer-director telecommunications, The Ohio State University, Columbus, 1967 to 1969; associate professor, University of Mississippi, Oxford, 1971 to 1972; adjunct professor, The Ohio State University, Columbus, 1972 to 1974; project director, Ohio Valley Medical Microwave Television System, Ohio Educational Broadcasting (OEB) network, Columbus, 1972 to 1974 with Richard Hull, executive director of OEB [The System had become an ARC | Appalachian Regional Commission demonstration project before Foote took over management]; faculty and coordinator graduate studies, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia, Athens, 1974 to 1980; associate professor of Broadcasting, University of North Alabama, Florence, 1980 forward; professor, UNA in England, University of London, 1990 and 1991; instructor, UCLA/UNA joint certificate in film, 2004-2006. Awards judge, Ohio State Awards, 1968 to 1973; chairman, faculty screening committee, George Foster Peabody Radio-TV Awards, 1976 to 1979. Board of directors, Florence YMCA, 1982 to 1986. NDEA fellow, 1967; National Academy of TV Arts and Sciences Memorial fellow, 1970; recipient Community Service award Florence Civitan Club, 1990, for Shoals CP Telethon hosting; first place award, Corporate Video Competition, National Broadcasting Society, 1991; regional first and national third place award College Emmy, Hollywood Academy TV Arts and Sciences, 1984; honorable mention, comedy awards, National Broadcasting Society, 1987. Providing image for history brochure, Johns Hopkins University Press (oldest in US), 2002; Industry-Faculty Seminar fellow, International Radio-TV Society, New York, 1987. Member, Radio-Television News Directors Association, 2001-04, Alpha Epsilon Rho (founding advisor, North Alabama Chapter, 1981 and advisor 2002-03), BBC Networking Club (1994 to 1996). Republican. Anglican. Club: Exchange (board of directors 1984 to 1986). Collection developer: The Persian Gulf War Video Collection (1992-2001), opened in Broadcast Pioneers Library of American Broadcasting/National Public Broadcasting Archives, University of Maryland, new Hornbake Library facilities, 2002 with Grand Opening in New York, Grand Hyatt Hotel, September 18, 2003; Editor: The Challenges of Educational Communications, 1970; CBS and Congress: The Selling of the Pentagon Papers, 1972. Contributor, Broadcasting and Bargaining, edited by Allen E. Koenig at Ohio State, 1970; Chotankers, 1982. Editor, National Association of Educational Broadcasters, Educational Broadcasting Review, 1969 to 1973. [Foote followed his friend and former professor -- Allen E. Koenig -- as editor of EBR. Foote hired Mrs. Frederick G. Kilgour (Eleanor) as his assistant editor. Her husband was the founder of OCLC at Ohio State University; OCLC now serves 69,000 libraries in over 110 countries and territories around the world. Since Foote's years of graduate study and employment at Ohio State, EBR has been selected as reference shelf materials for collections on various public radio, public television topics, including Allerton House Conferences, National Public Broadcasting Archives, University of Maryland, in 2002]. New York Festivals, International TV Program and Promotion, National Jury Chairperson (there were 25), 2002-04 and 2007, with Chairperson judging visit, New York office in 2003. Additional study at New York University; and University of Mississippi. Producer of TV programs; Web developer of chotank.com -- an original BBC Networking Club website from Cambridge, 1995; sometimes Web Consultant with Dr. Dorothy Gargis Foote to son Kevin's FastHealth Corporation, Tuscaloosa, with offices in the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) building until March 2010. In September 2006 FastHealth was in over 250 hospitals across the states after making publicity splash with billboards in Tuscaloosa. Two Huntsville-Decatur-Florence affiliates of FastHealth.com are Helen Keller Hospital, Sheffield, Alabama and Athens-Limestone Hospital, Athens, Alabama. The Americus, Georgia hospital, heavily damaged in 2007 tornado strikes across Alabama and Georgia, is a contract affiliate of FastHealth and FastCommand. Both President Bush and President Carter visited the hospital after the weather damage, and the WashingtonPost.com distributed on 15 March 2007 an Associated Press news story about hospital recovery. The Washington Post featured the hospital's web address in its coverage.

UNA Office Email: aefoote@una.edu.

Allen E. Koenig and Thomas H. Langevin, The Registry for College and University Presidents, in Presidential Transition in Higher Education: Managing Leadership Change, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004

Read on, dull stuff for surfers,
but great for genealogists!

Chotankers: A Family History in Windsor Library
near Windsor Castle, Click for info

Nancy Crowder Foote BIBLE records
with notes by Eddie Foote on
relatives: Sam Phillips family of
Lauderdale County, Alabama, Finch Grisham
and Gilson Foote families of Tishomingo County, Mississippi

Correction--CHOTANKERS (the book)

Chotank Web History -- Starting with BBC Networking Club membership

1994 FAX to Horton Foote

Return to THORNWOOD ÞUBLISHERS' Menu-Plus

T. S. Stribling, winner 1933 Pulitzer Prize -- Jump to Foote's Comments
Stribling is a distant kinsman of the Footes of Chester, South Carolina through the Kincheloes. To get Tom Stribling's laughable opinions on family history, read first three paragraphs of Chapter I in Laughing Stock, Stribling's autobiography that was published many years after his death in Florence, Alabama. Dr. Foote was given a copy by Mrs. Stribling during his trip to Clifton, Tennessee when his class was preparing to shoot "She Had Hair Like His Sister's". The program later won the equivalent of a College Emmy from the Hollywood Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles. The Academy places a copy of all winning entries in the UCLA Archives. Dr. Foote has donated a complete Kincheloe family history that describes the Kincheloe legacy of both families to the Stribling Collection at the UNA Library. Professor Foote moderated a session on Stribling during the 2006 George Lindsey UNA Film Festival, that included granddaughter Niki Foote's presentation on Stribling's ties to Roanoke, Virginia. Dr. Randy Cross, who serves with Foote on the local Shoals Stribling Birthday Committee, was the UNA Fall 2007 Convocation speaker. Cross was nominated for a Pulitzer for his editing of Laughing Stock.

"O Brother, Where Art Thou?"
Read why history of the movie, that features a
Tishomingo County Radio Station, bears a footprint.

Burke's Peerage and Gentry -- Click here to
read about Foote-Stuart family of Chotank and their friendship with
Robert E. Lee
See ATAVUS, Burke's on-line journal for March-April 2003.
Henry Stuart Foote, one of the founders of the University of North Alabama and pre-Civil War Governor of Mississippi, was a kinsman of both families.
C-Span has supported in 2009 the Smithsonian Collector's Edition of Lincoln: America's Greatest President at 200. The map of "12 Days on the Run", page 77, includes location of "Dr. Richard Stuart's Home". The back cover features the C-SPAN advertisement.

Jump to Vanderbilt University: Click to read Vandy's account of Henry Stuart Foote in Nashville and how his home is the oldest building on campus.
The Methodist Episcopal Church that traced its roots to John Wesley, vicar in the Church of England, founded both Vanderbilt and the University of North Alabama. Eddie says that Governor Foote created -- in 1870s at his Nashville home -- the Foote/Foot genealogy that first revealed England burial of Samuel Foote/Foot near Windsor Castle.

Click link above to read full story from April 2002

Shelby Foote: A Writer's Life by C. Stuart Chapman is in hundreds of libraries across the US. You can check the On-Line Computer Library Center's WorldCat database in Dublin, Ohio (OCLC) with the help of your local college or university reference librarian to determine which of its 69,000 member libraries in 110 countries have the University Press of Mississippi book, published spring 2003. Or by clicking on author's name you will be able to select a state or country for a library list direct from OCLC.

Writing from Boston University, C. Stuart Chapman made Chotankers: A Family History (1982) by Avon Edward Foote, professor emeritus, University of North Alabama in Huntsville-Decatur-Florence TV Market (DMA), the primary reference source for Northern Virginia history of Shelby Foote's ancestors in "Chapter I, Roots".

Chapman is press assistant to US Congresswoman Barbara Lee, representing 9th California District including Oakland, 108th Congress. A kinsman of Shelby's family, Mississippi Senator and Governor Henry Stuart Foote lived with his first wife Elizabeth Winter, whom he married in Tuscumbia, Alabama, and their children at Oakland, California, before returning to Mississippi on the eve of the American Civil War. She died in Oakland and is buried there. Governor Foote married in Nashville a second time, and the couple's home is the oldest building on the Vanderbilt University campus. Both Shelby Foote: A Writer's Life and Chotankers: A Family History, featuring Henry Stuart Foote's genealogical research, are in the Vanderbilt University Library. UNA Professor Foote believes that Henry Stuart Foote would have prepared the genealogical history of the Footes at his Nashville home. The house has been a part of Vanderbilt from the University's beginnings as a Methodist Episcopal Church School, that was named "Central University" when founded. The home, part of the original Vanderbilt campus, is known fondly by faculty, students and alumni as "Old Central". The family genealogical summary by Senator Foote is Appendix I on page 281 of Chotankers. Henry S. wrote the short history before 1880 using research and records of William Hayward Foote of Hayfield in Virginia near Mount Vernon. In the record on Samuel Foote, Henry wrote "SAMUEL, b. Jan. 25, 1659-60; d. Mar. 27, 1697; buried at Windsor." Of George Foote, Henry wrote, "Moved to So. Carolina and d. there." Both Avon Edward Foote and Shelby Foote traced their ancestory to George Foote of Chester County, South Carolina, who is the son of George Foote and Frances Berryman Foote of BrentTown in Virginia. Shelby's ancestor is William and Avon's ancestor is Gilson, his brother. The two brothers lived in South Carolina in 1810 before Gilson left the state to avoid charges of theft. Gilson ran off to New Orleans taking Gilson, Jr. and Sarah with him. Gilson, Jr. married Nancy Crowder, and his wife and children bought land in Tishomingo County, Mississippi in 1845 after Gilson Jr.'s death. Sarah's daughter Lucinda married John Milton Massey. And their son, Henry S. Massey, was a next-door neighbor of Lila Frances Broughton Foote when she was growing up in Iuka, on the very same homesite where she lives on 15 November 2008. Charlotte Foote Grisham was Lila's great-grandmother. The Grishams, Footes and Masseys all knew of their Foote ancestors. Shelby's ancestor, the son of Gilson's brother, moved from South Carolina to Macon, Mississippi nearly ten years before Gilson, Jr.'s death. Douglas Southall Freeman, Pulitzer Prize winning biographer of George Washington and Robert E. Lee, wrote: "Family history is the only history made or written in Chotank."

Above Image from New York Public Library shows Chotankers catalog entry



Oh let me take you by the hand
and lead you through the streets of London . . .
O Brother, Where Art Thou?

In Land o' Goshen "We ain’t one-at-a-timin’. We’re mass-communicatin’"

Channel 15, founded as WOWL-TV,
NBC in 1957. Now -- The Valley's
CW, Huntsville-Decatur-Florence.
UNA Festival ad from February 08.

Full News View >>>>

JAVA code reports you have not completed SUN install

The Telegraph The Guardian

Power Updating displays require JAVA from SUN. Enable JAVA if yours is NEW Windows 7 or Apple for 2010.
JAVA is everywhere -- Mobile phones, Laptop computers, Blu-ray DVD players, TV set-top boxes.

Reviewed . Revised . Refreshed 11 March 2010 Our 15th Year

Avon Edward Foote [chotank@aol.com or aefoote@una.edu] (Æ or Ð or Eddie)

Read on, dull stuff for surfers,but great for genealogists!

Avon Edward Foote
[chotank@aol.com or aefoote@una.edu]
(Æ or Ð or Eddie)

Read on, dull stuff for surfers,
but great for genealogists!