Shazam! Happy Birthday UA Alum Jim Nabors

Jim Nabors, UA Homecoming 1968

University of Alabama alum Jim Nabors (class of 1952) was born on June 12, 1930 in Sylacauga, Alabama. Best known for his beloved character, Gomer Pyle on both the Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pile, U.S.M.C., Nabors has had a long and successful career as both an actor and singer.

Nabors with a young fan in Alabama, 1966

Jim Nabors' earliest acting experience was on the UA campus, as part of the Jason's Jamboree, where he wrote skits and performed with his Delta Tau Delta fraternity brothers. After graduating, he did head off to New York, but not for a career in show biz -- he started out as a typist for the United Nations. He then moved and took a job working in the film industry -- not in Hollywood, but rather in Chattanooga, Tennessee as a film cutter.

It was asthma that brought him west, and he started his career in Los Angeles as an apprentice film cutter, and began performing cabaret in the evenings, in a club called The Horn, which showcased new talent. His singing style and "hillbilly" monologues brought him an audition to the Steve Allen show, where he became a regular.

When Allen's show was cancelled, Nabors tried his luck in San Francisco, but in six months he was back in Los Angeles. Soon after, he auditioned for Andy Griffith -- and from there, a career was born.

Nabors has recorded over two dozen albums, has stared on TV, film, hosted his own talk show, his own variety show, and and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Jim Nabors album cover from Hoole Special Collections Library
Featured in Hear Hair Here Exhibit

Nabors is also a well-known face to racing fans -- performing the song "Back Home in Indiana" 30 times since 1972 at the Indianapolis 500, most recently this year. And back home in Alabama, U.S. Highway 280 in Talladega, Alabama is named the "Jim Nabors Highway" in his honor. He was also recently honored at University of Alabama/University of Hawaii fooball game in 2006. Though he has lived in Hawaii for many, many years, he still follows The University of Alabama football team.

Here is an example of Jim Nabors' acting -- capturing the moment when Gomer Pyle leaves Andy Griffith to join the Marines:



Here is a great example from his variety show which showcases his rich singing voice! Olé!




A very happy birthday to you, Mr. Nabors!

Remembering Robert F. Kennedy

This photograph of Senator (and Presidential Candidate) Robert F. Kennedy and University of Alabama president, Frank Rose was taken when Kennedy visited UA in March of 1968 as part of the Emphasis program.

Robert F. Kennedy not only visited campus as part of Emphasis, but he is to be remembered as the Attorney General of the United States who oversaw the successful and peaceful integration of The University of Alabama in June of 1963. Working with his future successor, Nicholas Katzenbach, Kennedy brought about this important step forward and is forever part of UA's place in American Civil Rights history.

When Senator Kennedy visited campus in 1968, just three months before his assassination, he gave the keynote address for Emphasis '68 -- a talk entitled "America at the Crossroads". To listen to the audio file of his speech, visit here. To view the program for Emphasis '68, visit here. You can also read his speech and view it as it was given to us here. All of this material is part of the Emphasis collection, part of the UA Libraries' Digital Collections.


In his address to the students of The University of Alabama, he said the following -- words which ring true today as they did some forty years ago.

"It is the fate of this generation to live with a struggle we did not start in a world we did not make. But the pressures of life are not always distributed by choice. And while no nation has ever faced such a challenge, no nation has ever been so ready to seize the burden and the glory of freedom."

The Archer, the Thief and UA's 1938 Rose Bowl Team

This very cool picture from our collections features The University of Alabama's football team in 1938 -- after their defeat in the Rose Bowl. In the photograph are two men who stand out a little bit -- with elaborate costumes. Who are they? Well, they are Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone, stars of the 1938 film, The Adventures of Robin Hood.


The University of Alabama football team were no slouches -- but it was never clear (to me, anyway) exactly why they ended up on this particular movie set, with these particular actors -- until just this week when the connection came in the form of a television show on sharp shooters on the History Channel. The probable connection? Howard Hill!



Who? While he may not be a household name in every household, Howard Hill certainly was a man who had his share of the limelight. Hill, known by many as the "World's Greatest Archer" (and "Ol' One Shot") was born November 13, 1899 in Wilsonville, Alabama. He won 196 consecutive field archery tournaments between 1926 and 1942, and also won the International field meet in 1942.

Hill was a Hollywood stuntman and consultant, working with actors and on movie sets from the late 1930s through the 1950s. Among his many credits include that of archery instructor and stuntman for The Adventures of Robin Hood!



In fact, Hill and Robin Hood title character star Errol Flynn were longtime friends -- here they are fishing together aboard Flynn's yacht.



According to the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, (he was inducted in 1971) Howard Hill "took more than 2,000 game animals and 1,000 reptiles and fish in 12 countries.... and was the first man to kill a bull elephant with a bow and arrow." Cover details featured here are from books from the Hoole Alabama Collection, Hunting the Hard Way, and Wild Adventure. Both recount Hill's encounters with wild animals around the world as well as a broad range of advise and information for the budding archer or archery enthusiast-- he not only was an archery superstar, but also designed and made all of his own equipment. 


Hill's legacy lives on in fiction through DC Comics' Green Arrow series. In the comic, Oliver Queen (aka "The Emerald Archer") refers to Howard Hill as his childhood hero, and it eventually ends up that Hill bestows upon Queen the legendary bow that he used on the set of The Adventures of Robin Hood. When Queen dies, his son Conner Hawke takes over the family business -- fighting crime with Hill's legendary Robin Hood bow -- it's fiction meets fact meets fiction!

So it seems -- the Archer (Hill) and the Thief (Robin Hood/Errol Flynn) and the 1938 Rose Bowl team come together here - connected through Hill and with all probability someone knowing someone from back home in Alabama -- but not from school. Howard Hill not only was a heck of an archer, but he also played baseball for that other big school on the other side of the state -- Auburn University.  

Jefferson Davis' 200th/Biographer Hudson Strode

Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederacy was born 200 years ago today in Kentucky -- on June 3, 1808.

A definitive Jefferson Davis biography was written by Hudson Strode and published by Harcourt Brace in 1955.

Strode was a University of Alabama graduate and legendary professor at UA. He was a fascinating man who left an incredible legacy to The University of Alabama, including an endowed program, his beautiful home, and a residence for a graduate student in the department of English. Hudson Strode is pictured here, gun at his side, pipe in hand, a dashing and mysterious figure.

Hudson Strode's papers are housed at the Hoole Library and consist of correspondence, typed manuscripts, proof sheets photographs, and other interesting materials.

Letter from Varina Davis to Jefferson Davis, 25 April 1880. 

The Jefferson Davis materials in the Hoole Library

come from Hudson Strode's papers orginally.

Strode corresponded with some of the best known political and literary minds of the day including Aldous Huxley, H.L. Mencken, Sigrid Unsdset, Pearl S. Buck, Hugo Black, George Wallace, Clifton Fadiman and Alfred A. Knopf. The collection also contains research materials for his biography of Davis like the image of the letter featured here. You can view the finding aid for this collection at http://www.lib.ua.edu/libraries/hoole/findingaids/pdf/ms_1361.pdf

TGIF from PBO and the Minsky Collection

The book featured here is Black Friday by Frederic Stewart Isham (1886-1922) with binding design by Rome K. Richardson, published in 1904 in New York by Grosset and Dunlap. It is from the Richard Minsky Collection at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library. The cover design features stylized stock ticker tape machines and basket receptacles in a repeating pattern -- a distinctive nod to the modern.

Visit Publishers' Bindings Online, 1815-1930: The Art of Books for images of this book and over 5,000 more, along with a huge variety of research and teaching tools, fun and fascinating things to read, and lots of cool things to look at -- something for everyone. And that includes a nice little graphic to remind us (not that we need it) that it's Friday!

Cool as a Plate Glass Negative: Selections from the Eugene Allen Smith Collection

Camp kitchen and cooking staff, Central Coal and Iron Company, undated

The Eugene Allen Smith Collection spans more than four decades from the late nineteenth century to early twentieth century. The collection depicts Smith's field work and travels. E.A. Smith was a professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy at The University of Alabama from 1871-1913, and served as Alabama State Geologist from 1873-1913. We have 209 images from from his collection of plate glass negatives accessible through the UA Libraries Digital Collections.
The photographs featured here illustrate the broad spectrum of subjects -- from industry, to natural history, to The University of Alabama's history, to travel photographs.

View of Atlanta and Georgia Southern Railroad, undated

A native of Autauga County, Alabama and was born in 1841. Smith entered The University of Alabama at the age of nineteen and graduated with an A.B. degree in 1862. In his long and successful career as Alabama State Geologist he was instrumental in documenting, mapping, discovering and publicizing the abundant resources in the State.

Chemistry laboratory and classroom, Tuomey Hall, University of Alabama campus, undated

Smith was responsible for creating the first comprehensive Alabama geological survey as well as documenting these findings to fellow scientists and to the press, bringing to public view each new discovery of coal, iron, or other minerals. It was Dr. Smith who also first realized the historical value of Moundville and its artifacts, and actively focused public interest on this important archaeological site. His impact as an advocate for the state of Alabama is still felt to this day. The extensive Mineralogy collection stated by Smith in the 1870s is housed at the Alabama Museum of Natural History, located in E.A. Smith Hall also on the UA campus.

View of unidentified temple in China, undated

The purpose of the UA Libraries Digital Program at the University Libraries is to develop accessible digital collections of materials that support the teaching and research of UA faculty and students, and that, in turn, further the mission of The University of Alabama.

The Digital Program coordinates major digitization projects, actively develops policy and procedure relating to digital project and program development, and is active in soliciting digital project proposals and ideas for proposals, regardless of size, format, or technological medium. The program works with idea submitters to develop ideas into potentially viable projects, evaluating each individual digital project proposal. The Digital Program's role is to assess and seek out potential digital projects, and in turn make recommendations about implementation and development of these potential projects to the Dean of University Libraries.

Harper Lee Postscript: The Understatement of the Century

This detail from the "Little Nelle" Heads Ram... article posted earlier this week merits a second look. And write a book she did.... It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize 47 years ago today.