A: Thanks, Backinda. How does this, one of the great journalistic sagas of our time, begin? Well, it was a dark and stormy night… But seriously, the official story credits two skinny kids from that gentlemen’s establishment, Hampden-Sydney College, who had pockets full of lint and heads full of dreams. “Hey,” said Bill Chapman, Charlottesville native, to Hawes Spencer, “let’s start a newspaper. We’ll call it C-Ville Review.” “O.K.,” Spencer reportedly said, “but I get to be publisher.” (Later they changed roles, those wacky fellas!)
You’ve heard it all before: the sleepless night in the back of the delivery van before the first issue hit the stands on September 19, 1989; the searing debate over how large to run that Mary Steenburgen photo with the Miss Firecracker movie review; the last-minute substitution of the unforgettable “Ode to a Toaster” photo spread for a geo-political analysis of the policies of George Bush The First. Blah blah blah.
What has never come out until now, dear Backinda, is how yours truly, yes I, Ace Atkins, encouraged those boys—indeed, Ace practically pushed them into the project! “Whadayawanna do? Work in college PR the rest of your life?” Ace hollered at Spencer.
“You think somebody’s just gonna pay you to sit around here running your smart mouth?” Ace boomed at Chapman.
In return for Ace’s gentle prodding and incomparable vision (Ace just knew Miss Firecracker would bomb, regardless of Miss Steenburgen’s assets), Chapman and Spencer gave him his own column beginning with the very first issue. These days Spencer runs a little operation called The Hook and Chapman manages Portico Publications, the parent company ofC-VILLE. Is it a coincidence that 15 years later the only one of the three of us originals still hanging around this newspaper is moi? Ace thinks not.