Anna Crawford Milner Archives and Special Collections

If Montevallo had an official voice, most would likely agree it belonged to Ralph Sears. For decades his speaking style on the Montevallo campus, on WBYE Radio and in Montevallo City Council meetings was easy to hear and remember. His voice is particularly memorable to people who listened to him talk as a university faculty member, radio station newscaster, and for 24 years, the mayor of Montevallo.

Marcia Mockett Sears partnered with her husband as they published the Shelby County Reporter. The newspaper archives, searchable here for the first time, capture the social upheaval of the last half of the 20th century. School integration, women in public life, George Wallace’s pursuit of the presidency: all are captured here in weekly newspaper stories. Marcia’s writing won awards and the presidency of the Alabama Press Association, the first woman to be elected.

In the mid-1950’s, Ralph’s parents died, leaving a modest amount of money used to purchase WBYE Radio, an AM station in Calera offering daytime programming of news, country and 1950’s music. It marked a return for Ralph to commercial radio announcing. His work at Alabama College allowed him time on early weekday mornings to begin a news broadcast he named Between the Lines. He called on advertisers across the county and offered them space in the Shelby Shopping Guide.

The audio archives share stories recorded over the years as Ralph Sears taught, announced university events, recorded the action of MHS football games, and broadcast feature stories every weekday morning on the popular ten-minute radio show Between the Lines.

The Ralph and Marcia Sears Media Archive is house online in Vallo Vault, UM's Digital Archive and Scholarship Hub. You can access the archive homepage here or use the chapter links below.

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Pioneers in a red convertible
• Chapter 2: Music from Montevallo heard around the world
• Chapter 3: Faculty wife with a heart for social change
• Chapter 4: Between the Lines: The Sounds of WBYE
• Chapter 5: BYE Goes to the World's Fair
• Chapter 6: Shelby County Reporter: Covering a changing social order
• Chapter 7: The Shelby Shopping Guide
• Chapter 8: The Mayoral Years