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26-423: D.H. "Buck" Long, vice president of WKRG, brought the idea of Congressional Report to the attention of Jack Edwards , who represented Alabama's 1st congressional district . The program would be a collaboration of Edwards, Trent Lott of Mississippi's 5th congressional district and Bob Sikes of Florida's 1st congressional district . Sikes was reluctant at first, according to Lott, but he ultimately joined

52-756: A law practice there. He became president of the Mobile Area Jaycees and in 1961 was named one of the Outstanding Young Men in America by the national Jaycees organization. Edwards also served as president of the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo as well as chairman of America's Junior Miss Pageant. Beginning in 1960, he advised Mobile's Planning Commission's Transportation Policy Committee. In November 1964, Edwards defeated Democrat John M. Tyson Sr. and Mobile activist Noble Beasley to become

78-734: A politician, but two emergency management officials from Mobile County and Baldwin County discussing hurricane preparedness. In exchange of the hiatus, Beckerle was offered two 30-minute segments of airtime. The segments aired respectively on June 11 and June 18 in Congressional Report's former timeslot. Bonner was re-elected in November, but never received word on when the Congressional Report would return to WKRG. In February 2007, Bonner's spokeswoman Nancy Wall acknowledged that her boss accepted that Congressional Report would not return to WKRG, but

104-593: The Alabama legislature ) had become his party's candidate after the Democratic primary in which he defeated Clara Stone Fields , the only woman in the Alabama legislature during that decade. Edwards became one of five Republicans elected to the House from Alabama (the others being James D. Martin , John Hall Buchanan , Glenn Andrews , and William Louis Dickinson ) amid Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater 's sweep of

130-692: The Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge and the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve . During Reagan's presidency, he became the vice chairman of the House Republican conference leadership. He was the ranking Republican member on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. After serving on the committee for ten years, he had become a national defense expert. He was also a member of

156-707: The Gordon Persons Bridge , carries a 3-mile (4.8 km), two-lane section of Alabama State Route 193 from mainland Mobile County, Alabama across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to Dauphin Island . The natural channel followed by the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway at this location is Pass Aux Herons. The bridge separates the Mississippi Sound on the west from Mobile Bay on the east. It

182-661: The Great Depression . His great-grandfather was Perry Jackson Edwards (1847–1919) of Decatur, Alabama (nicknamed "Captain Jack"), who rose to become chief inspector of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad . Young Jack also knew his long-lived great uncle Perry Jackson Edwards. When young Jack was 17, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served until 1951 (as the Korean War began). His great-great-grandfather, William F. Aldrich , had been

208-441: The 1940s. Edwards also picked up long coattails from Goldwater, who carried the district by well over 70 percent of the vote. Although most of the 1st's living residents had never been represented by a Republican before, Edwards became very popular in his district, to the point that he would never face a close contest for reelection. He only dropped below 59 percent of the vote once, in 1968. Despite this, Democrats would hold most of

234-524: The 2006 election for Congress. Mobile lawyer Vivian Beckerle also accused the program of being a political promotion for Bonner's campaign. The station had planned on putting the program on hiatus August 6 due to federal rules requiring that such programs not air 90 days or less before an election, but the May 26 letter to WKRG made station officials put the program on hiatus two months earlier than expected. The last pre-recorded program, which never aired, featured not

260-734: The Hand Arendall law firm, where he practiced law for another two decades. in 1988, he chaired the Base Realignment and Closure Commission . Edwards continued his civic involvement in Mobile, becoming as chairman of the board of the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce, as well as serving on various boards of trustees, including of the University of Alabama System , his alma mater (from 1988 til 1999), and became its president after his retirement from

286-711: The House Banking Committee. From 1973 to 1985, he was co-host of the Gulf Coast Congressional Report , which aired on WKRG-TV in Mobile. According to the Alabama governor's office, Edwards was a strong supporter of Reagan's military buildup. In 1979, after a devastating hurricane, Alabama's Dauphin Island bridge had to be rebuilt, and Edwards oversaw the funding. Edwards announced he would not run again in 1984, and Vice-president George H. W. Bush spoke at his retirement dinner. Edwards then joined

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312-649: The House from Alabama amid Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater 's sweep of the state in that year's presidential election. During Ronald Reagan 's presidency, Edwards became the vice chairman of the Republican leadership and was a member of the United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense . He oversaw the funding for the rebuilding efforts of Alabama's Dauphin Island Bridge in 1979. William Jackson Edwards III

338-510: The U.S. Congressman representing Alabama's 1st congressional district . Alabama had lost one of its nine seats after the 1960 federal census, and after a statewide vote, the first district's Democratic incumbent, Frank Boykin , a 28-year congressional veteran recently again implicated in a corruption scandal, had been the lowest vote-getter and thus redistricted out of his office. Since Alabama could not actually lose its first district, Tyson (a lawyer like Edwards and who served in both houses of

364-645: The area's seats in the state legislature well into the 1990s. During his time in Congress, Edwards worked for development of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and served on the House Appropriations Committee as well as became the ranking Republican on the Defense subcommittee. Reportedly President Ronald Reagan's point man to improve national defense, Edwards also led efforts to establish both

390-479: The areas of constitutional reform, education, the environment and economic development in the Mobile area. He also served on the corporate boards of several companies such as The Southern Company , Holcim Inc. , Northrop Grumman Corporation , QMS Inc., Dravo Corporation and The Aerospace Corporation . According to Alabama governor Kay Ivey , Edwards was respected by both Democrats and Republicans. In 1987, Edwards

416-588: The highest degree of integrity" and said flags at the Alabama State Capitol would be flown at half-staff in his honor. A statement released by Edwards' family quoted him as having said "My hope is that my great grandchildren will grow up in a country where civility will have been returned to common discourse and to the efforts to solve the country’s problems." Dauphin Island Bridge The Dauphin Island Bridge , formally

442-534: The last Republican congressman from the state, serving (with a few months' break) from 1896 to 1901. He attended the University of Alabama and became the president of the Student Government Association, then attended the University of Alabama School of Law , graduating in 1954. After becoming a member of the Alabama Bar, Edwards eventually moved to Point Clear , a suburb of Mobile and opened

468-688: The law firm. He was a member on the boards of the Mobile Opera, Mobile Economic Development Council and the Mayor's Waterfront Advisory Committee, among others. From 1987 to 1996, he served on the board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority . In 1988, he served as co-chairman of the Secretary of Defense's first commission, known as the 1988 Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC I). In his final years Edwards, worked in

494-617: The program during the mid-1980s. In the July 2003 Nielsen ratings , the program in its 10:00 a.m. timeslot (following Face the Nation on CBS ) still ranked higher in viewers than those of Mobile's three other major network TV affiliates. It continued to be profitable for WKRG, which had estimated that it could earn $ 1500 or more for airing the commercial-free program. On June 4, 2006, WKRG halted further airings of Congressional Report in response to an equal-time complaint by Jo Bonner's opponent in

520-429: The program from its first broadcast. Sikes was a Democrat ; Edwards and Lott were Republicans . Throughout the years, the hosts made sure the program would remain non-partisan and free of conflicts. After succeeding Sikes in 1979, fellow Democrat Earl Hutto joined the program. Edwards retired from Congress in 1985, and fellow Republican Sonny Callahan succeeded him in Congress and on the program. Shortly after Lott

546-593: The state in that year's presidential election. Edwards defeated Democrat John Tyson Sr. by 19 points. He went on to be reelected nine times and served alongside five American presidents. The Mobile area's voters, like most of their counterparts in Alabama, turned against the Democrats after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . Parts of the district had been among the first parts of Alabama where old-line Democrats began splitting their tickets as early as

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572-577: Was actively exploring alternative methods of returning the program to the air. However, none of those efforts went anywhere before Bonner retired in 2013. Jack Edwards (Alabama) William Jackson Edwards (September 20, 1928 – September 27, 2019) was an Alabama lawyer and politician who represented the 1st Congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1965 to 1985. A Republican , Edwards first won election to Congress in 1964, one of five Republicans elected to

598-635: Was born near Birmingham , Alabama in 1928. His father, William Jackson Edwards Jr., had grown up in Decatur, Alabama and worked for the Rural Electrification Administration at various jobs and receiving promotions until he headed the engineering department. Young Jack also knew and shared his formal name with his long-lived grandfather, William Jackson Edwards. He had a sister, Julia Caroline Edwards Brock, and grew up in Homewood, Alabama during

624-424: Was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1988, Callahan took over as sole host. Lott and Hutto would reappear on the program during Callahan's term in Congress. In 2002, Callahan announced his retirement from Congress and his Chief of Staff, Jo Bonner , became his successor. Like his former boss, Bonner also hosted Congressional Report on his own, and invited numerous guests. As an aide to Callahan, Bonner helped produce

650-711: Was named Alabama's Volunteer Industrial Developer of the Year. In 1985, he was inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor . In 1987, he was named Mobilian of the Year. In 2005, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the University of Alabama 's College of Communications and Information Sciences. Edwards died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Fairhope, Alabama , on September 27, 2019, one week after his 91st birthday. Alabama governor Kay Ivey said Edwards "served his state and nation with

676-462: Was named in honor of Seth Gordon Persons , the 46th governor of Alabama. The original bridge opened on July 2, 1955. It was destroyed by Hurricane Frederic in 1979 and was replaced by a fixed precast concrete segmental bridge in 1982. The central main span was the first use of a 400-foot (122 m) span on a precast concrete segmental bridge. On January 7, 2008, Vietnamese immigrant Lam Luong tossed his four children, to their deaths off of

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