Herman Giles, Boy Wonder of the Kingsport Times News

Herman Giles, Big Stone Gap High, Class of 1942

Herman Giles hadn’t even started his senior year in high school when his byline first appeared in the Kingsport Times. It was over an August 1941 story about football coaching changes at the seven Wise County, Virginia high schools:

“For a while it looked as if the leading teams of the county were to have a strong Milligan influence due to the fact that five men from that school were scheduled to handle Wise county teams….”

Giles – perhaps I should refer to him as Herman since he was so young – had begun his writing career as a sophomore in high school, contributing a regular column to the Big Stone Gap Post. It wasn’t yet spring break of his sophomore year when he sold his first story to a national magazine, “The Legend of the Gila,” which appeared in the March 1941 issue of Street & Smith’s Wild West Weekly. As a high school senior he continued sending stories to the Kingsport Times, most of them about high school football in southwest Virginia.

He often covered himself, writing about games he played in for Big Stone Gap High, even listing, without comment, the members of the all-conference football team that included one Herman Giles at guard.

He still hadn’t graduated from high school when the Times named him “Kingsport Times State Writer.” Big Stone Gap and Wise County were his beat. After school.

And his graduation present from the newspaper was a full-time job and a new title: Kingsport Times Sports Writer.

But Herman Giles was only getting started.

Three years out of high school he was named managing editor of the Kingsport News.

Another year later in 1946 he added front-page columnist to his workload.

And before he was 30, he was executive editor of the Kingsport News.

Meanwhile on the side he was writing stories for national magazines and publishing novels.

Prodigy may not even cover it.

The reason you probably haven’t heard of Herman was because he left the Kingsport Times, and Kingsport, in 1949 to found the Bristol Virginia-Tennessean, a daily to compete with the established Bristol Herald-Courier.

But you should hear about him because he was a heckuva writer with an eye for subjects that would delight and entertain.

I confess I had not heard of him until I was researching Bill Freehoff’s career.

Herman had started the “Over the Coffee Cup” column in 1946 that Freehoff revived in 1952.

The first Herman Giles “Over the Coffee Cup” column I read hooked me.

From March 26, 1946:

There is a woman in Rogersville whose telephone number is 5101.

There is a woman in Kingsport whose telephone number is 5101.

And both women are named Miss Ann Amis.

Think about that a moment and you can see what might happen. And it does; ask either one of them.

Miss Ann Amis of Kingsport is secretary to a Tennessee Eastman executive and it's not unusual for her to answer the telephone and find there some friend of her aunt, Miss Ann Amis of Rogersville.

And Miss Ann Amis of Rogersville, who lives on a farm, says she has a path worn from the barn to her home by answering telephone calls which, she says, are invariably intended for her niece, Miss Ann Amis of Kingsport.

But when one tries to call the other it's a major operation.

To prove it, Miss Ann Amis of Rogersville tells of the result of a call to her niece in Kingsport the other day.

Calling from Rogersville, she told the operator something like this: "This is 5101, I want to call 5101 in Kingsport."

The operator said: "Your name, please?"

"Miss Ann Amis," "Your number again?" "5101."

“What number in Kingsport, please?"

"5101." "And whom are you calling?” "Miss Ann Amis."

There was a confused sputter on the line as the operator let the information soak in. "Well, where are you anyway?" she demanded.

"This is Ann Amis at 5101 and I want to call Ann Anis at 5101 in Kingsport," Miss Ann Amis of Rogersville said.

The operator's confusion was evident. “This is ridiculous!" she said.

 

After this introduction, I started actively looking for Herman Giles’ columns.

 

From Feb. 25, 1946:

James Taylor Adams, of Big Laurel, Va, writes that the last of the "Look-Alike" Gilliam brothers died last week. He was Abe Gilliam who died at the home of a daughter at Esserville Thursday.

Abe had two brothers, Steve and Hamp, and though they were not triplets, they usually dressed alike and their resemblance was such that many of their friends could hardly tell one from the other. Their favorite story was about the time Hamp met a girl at a social gathering in Letcher County, Ky. Hamp talked with the girl for a while, decided he was stuck, and excused himself by saying he wanted a drink. He found Steve and asked him to pinch-hit for him.

But Hamp didn't return and Steve got restless, looked up Abe and asked him to take his place. So the girl friend had the company of the three “Look Alike" Gilliam brothers that day and never suspected she'd met more than one.

 

That same column also told the story of Woodrow Counts, Eastman employee who used to be a mail carrier on a rural route in Virginia. Herman wrote:

His route was sort of back in the hills and some of the older people didn’t have much formal education. Some couldn't read or write and that's what made the job hard.

They'd come down to their mailbox, Woody says, and buy a penny postcard. They'd bring a pencil with them, and while they stood by the car and dictated, Woody would accommodate them by writing to their friends for them. This took a lot of time as more and more people found more and more people to write and the end of Woody's workday grew later and later.

Then came catalogue season, when all the mail-order houses sent out their new books.

"Writing postcards is one thing," Woody says, "but turning pages, copying order numbers, figuring out postage or freight, and then writing a money order was too much!"

 

On March 21, 1946 he introduced his readers to a Kingsport old-timer from Atlanta:

All the publicity which the City of Kingsport has received in the past year or two from radio broadcasts, magazine articles, etc., has apparently made a lot of people who lived here in the old days wonder about the appearance today. One of those is Fred Bender of Atlanta. Fred is a brick mason, and though he isn't around here anymore, some of the things he built with his own two hands are still standing. But Fred's a little behind on the progress since he left and he'd like to know what's happened since he went away. He left in 1918.

Here, in his own word, is what Fred had to say in a letter which arrived yesterday:

"Dear Sir: It's been a real long time since I have been in that growing city. I worked in your place when there were no lights, no water, no streets, no sidewalks. One small hotel – about a dozen rooms in it. The road in front of it was very rough. Not concrete. That was about 1916.

"I worked about one year or more. I went there to lay brick for the Kingsport Brick Co. Then, Mr. Ed Neehan was the Big Boss, better known as Gen. Supt.

"Mr. J. Fred Johnson was president, also was president for the C.C.&O. R. R. He was a fine man.

"I did a lot of work for those people, built 4 kilns and two big smokestacks. They had, when I left there, 26 bee hive kilns. I also helped finished the brick dryer which was a big job. I want you to send me some of your city literature of everything they got. Factories, business and all of Sullivan County.

"When I was there we drank water out of a mud hole. That was a pain. There was no way less they haul it from a creek by wagons and barrels. But it wasn't long they got water from some mountain top spring. I was there when they were getting that line of pipe in.

"How is the brick work in your city? Plenty full, I suppose. Are they making any brick and are they

selling any at what kind of a price? Old concrete block is the go here but not for me. I got no love for them, the same with cement brick. No good for me. I am a clay brick layer also tile.

"Well I close for this time. I will write you some more.

"Yours very truly.

"Fred Bender"

 

Fred did write again a year later. But by then Herman Giles had moved on from column writing to editing. Still this unbylined front page story sounds like Herman:

Bender writes, “I helped build four big down-draft kilns that required four hundred thousand red bricks and two hundred fire bricks. I worked on one school house, a big one, and several apartment houses - all two-story structures. While I was there, I helped build three big churches, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and a large Baptist Church. All three were of clean red brick. One of the nicest homes I worked on was about two miles from the railroad station. It was for Mr. J. Fred Johnson, who was connected with the Kingsport Brick Co., and a very fine fellow."

Bender plans to visit Kingsport next year some time, if possible. Before he returns for a visit, Bender wants a map of the city of 1947 so he won't “get lost."

 

Fred Bender apparently never made it back to Kingsport to use that map. He never made it back in the Kingsport Times anyway.

He died in Atlanta in 1955 at age 83.

 

Herman had more than just an eye for a good story he also had the proverbial nose for news.

Two days after Christmas in 1945, he spotted a famous face on Broad Street and managed to get a story on the front page the next morning:

Kingsport's Broad Street had few strolling couples and window shoppers to boast of last night with a damp haze and a trickle of rain hanging over the town, but there undoubtedly would have been more people abroad had some of the city's movie fans known that olive-skinned Merle Oberon, one of Hollywood's brightest stars, and her husband, Cameraman Lucien Ballard, were making their first tour of the town.

Though they walked the length of Broad Street and back, not a single person recognized the famous star, for, desiring rest and relaxation after a day of travel, she had taken every precaution against such an occurrence. Miss Oberon was dressed rather conservatively and appropriately for the soggy evening.

She does not talk quickly for publication, nor does she volunteer information. But she answers questions frankly and with a warmth that indicates she wants to help you more than she wants publicity. Miss Oberon and her husband had dinner at the Kingsport Inn and planned to spend the night here and then continue their journey to the West Coast. They are en route to Los Angeles after spending some time in New York City, where they went for the holidays, she said,

They are traveling by automobile. "I had heard that Kingsport was an attractive and interesting city," she said, "and since it was on our route, we decided to make it an overnight stop." She had heard little else of the town, she said, although she is a friend of two other world figures, NBC War Correspondent Robert St, John and film star Bette Davis, who have visited Kingsport recently.

Her most recent picture, released last week in New York, is "This Love of Ours," in which she is co-starred with Hollywood newcomer, Charles Korvin. The picture was made by Universal Studios and Mr. Ballard did the camera work.

The film couple planned to leave Kingsport early this morning for Los Angeles and then for Hollywood where Miss Oberon will resume work soon. She said last night that she did not know what her next picture would be, but two or three had been discussed. 

Merle Oberon and husband Lucien Ballard

I have two reactions to that story:

Merle Oberon had heard good things about Kingsport?

And Bette Davis visited Kingsport?

 

But Herman wasn’t just a newspaperman.

Writing under the name Hascal Giles – Hascal was his middle name - Herman published five novels and more than 80 magazine articles, almost all of them westerns.

His novels were “Kansas Trail,” “Texas Tough,” “Son Of A Fast Gun,” “Texas Blood” and “Texas Maverick,” all available on Amazon.

While he was working at the Kingsport newspapers, his stories appeared in Ace High magazine, Exciting Western magazine, Lariat Story magazine, Masked Rider Western, Range Riders magazine, Thrilling Ranch magazine and Texas Rangers magazine. Three days after his 20^th birthday his story “The Silver Saddle” was syndicated in newspapers all over the country including the Arizona Republic and the Minneapolis Tribune & Star Journal.

 For a taste of his style here is an excerpt from his novel “Son of a Fast Gun:”

For a moment, Ed Jessup said nothing. He raised his eyes to the blazing Texas sun like a man looking for storm warnings. The glance he gave the two men flanking him was akin to pity, but the hard, unrelenting sheen of defiance still smoldered in the pale blue eyes.

"All right," he said at last. "I reckon we'll just keep on acting like scared rabbits, even on our own land. What do you want me to do?"

 

Herman Hascal Giles died in 2010 in Bristol, where he had lived since 1952. He is survived by those five novels and hundreds of newspaper and magazine stories.