Biographies: Estelle Tannehill, 1977, Winn Parish, LA.
Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483
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From:  February 2, 1977 Winn Parish Enterprise News-American

Neighbors

She traded ads for groceries in the 1930s.

And, for 22 years, Estelle Tannehill, 1400 E. Lafayette, owned and edited the
Winnfield News-American, "at one time a competitor and now a part of the 'Winn
Parish Enterprise'."

To keep the newspaper going, Miss Tannehill said she had to do a lot of
"missionary work."

"I had to go out and convert people to advertising.  At that time a weekly
didn't make any money.  People would say 'I'll help you out with an ad'."

"They had to be shown it was an investment, not an expense.  A political year
was the only time we got a little advertising."

These same people always wanted their social news in the paper, she said.

Miss Tannehill owned the paper from May, 1924 to May, 1946.  She got it from
N. C. Dalton who bought the old "Winnfield Times," the local newspaper after
World War I.  He started "Sgt. Dalton's Weekly," the paper of the Ku Klux
Klan.

"The News-American was for the parish news and the weekly was for rabble-
rousing.  About 10,000 copies of the "Weekly" went out all over the country."

Dalton hired Miss Tannehill to keep his books.  "If anything else came up, I
had to do that, too."

Then in 1924, Dalton moved to Monroe and Miss Tannehill took over. She told
Dalton she would not print the "Weekly".

Trained as a teacher, she took a semester of journalism courses at LSU in 1927
and was initiated into Theta Sigma Phi, a woman's journalism society.

"When I was initiated into Theta Sigma Phi, I had to wear a paper dress to
class, over my regular dress."

In addition to trading ads for groceries and her "missionary work," Miss
Tannehill sponsored newspaper subscription contests to increase circulation.

"I think we gave away two cars, but a contest would bring in $5,000 in
subscriptions, too.  The press association frowned on contests, but they
worked for me."

Miss Tannehill served as president of the state press association in 1935.

By the beginning of the 1940s, weekly papers started to make money, Miss
Tannehill said.

"That's when people began to put in chain stores.  When they had a big sale,
they wanted posters and ads.  After a while, some would even call or bring in
an ad."

Among the stories she covered from her office in the building between Taylor
Pontiac and Winnfield Tire Center, was an electrocution across the street
in the jail where the city police station is located now.

"The sheriff asked me if I wanted to witness it."

She didn't.  But about everybody else in the parish wanted to be there when
the man convicted of killing another man died.  (See note below)

"That day people were just crammed into that street.  They couldn't see it
happen, of course.  They just wanted to be nearby when it did."

Politics and the Longs were news.  But, although Huey Long was her cousin, she
didn't support him editorially in her paper.

"I knew him as a boy.  I didn't know him much as a man, because I didn't much
like him as a man."

She did like Earl Long.  In 1954, when she had completed a second, or was it
third or fourth, career as a hospital administrator, Earl Long called her with
a job offer.  Until the next administration change, she inspected the tourist
information bureaus in Winnsboro and Tallulah for the Dept. of Commerce and
Industry.

The Longs were not the only politicians in her family.  Miss Tannehill's
father, R. L. Tannehill, was the first elected mayor of the village of
Winnfield in 1898.  Before that he served 10 years as sheriff.  He ran for
governor on the Populist ticket.

The community of Tannehill where he had a sawmill was named for him.

Mrs. Tannehill had served as the first administrator of the Winnfield General
Hospital, form 1948-1952.

"I hadn't been in very many hospitals so I spent a month visiting them.  I
asked them how they got the money and how they spent it."

After she gave up that administrator's post, she got the job of opening
another hospital in Kountz, Texas.

It was in 1946 that Miss Tannehill sold out to her brother Jack and to Dennis
Shell.  She helped the two of them with the paper afterward, but she has been
out of the newspaper business now for more than 30 years.

"I've had times I wondered why I did it," she said.  "But I liked it, liked
knowing everybody in the parish.  And I miss it."

(Note: The above reference to an electrocution is somewhat confusing.  Two
"legal" executions took place in post-reconstruction Winn Parish; one, the
electrocution of William Ayres, a black man convicted and electrocuted for 
rape, and two, William Harper, who was hanged for the murder of William
Harper.  Both executions took place on the block where the current day
Winnfield Police Department is housed.  At the time of these two executions
the Winn Parish Jail occupied the current police department building.  It is
difficult to tell which execution Miss Tannehill or the reporter is referring
to.)