The author, John Marek, is a writer and executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.
As a writer, I tend to be a tinkerer. I want to rewrite and rewrite forever and ever. That’s why I like writing this column every week for the Speckled Paw. The firm deadline means I write it once, let it simmer overnight, look at it again in the morning and send it on its way. While that timeline keeps me from constantly overthinking things, it also provides very little time for research. My essay about the “Pharr Yams” job search from a couple of weeks ago is a good example. Because the relationship between Atlantic Envelope and Atlantic Packaging wasn’t the focus of the story, I did a quick Google search, came to some basic conclusions and moved on.
If I had dug a little deeper, I would have learned that there was a richer tale to be told about Atlantic Packaging. Fortunately, regular reader Speed Hallman sent me a note filling in some of the holes in my story.
According to Speed, Atlantic Packaging was founded by Horace Carter, a Stanly County native and graduate of UNC’s journalism school. Speed met Horace in Tabor City when he was the school’s development officer.
Horace was an early economic developer and community activist. The Tabor City merchants association hired him to recruit industry. But he didn’t just recruit; he started the most prominent business in the county. Horace launched Atlantic Packaging to provide cardboard for a local shirt manufacturer to keep that money in the county. He also started a weekly newspaper and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for his courageous stand against the Klan. More than 100 KKK members were arrested and convicted as a result of his reporting. An editor at a small-town weekly paper winning the Pulitzer was big news. Edward R. Murrow interviewed him on “See it Now,” and when he died in 2009, the New York Times ran his obituary. Horace donated his gold Pulitzer medal to the UNC journalism school; he wanted students to see it and be inspired.
Horace’s son, Rusty, took over the business and moved the headquarters to Wilmington because his wife didn’t want to live in Tabor City. Rusty built it into the behemoth you see today, with significant operations and the newspaper remaining in Tabor City.
And that, as Paul Harvey was famous for saying, is the rest of the story. Thanks, Speed!