Nelder Dawson

Who was Nelder Dawson?

Arthur Nelder Dawson, Jr., was an award-winning newspaper executive and civic leader in Alexandria, Louisiana, during the second half of the twentieth century. He was a 50-year career employee of his hometown newspaper, the Alexandria Daily Town Talk, having worked in circulation, advertising, and human resources management. He started with the company as a youthful newspaper carrier and continued to advance up the ranks.

A board member of the Southern Classified Managers Association and a past president and life member of the Newspaper Personnel Managers Association, Dawson was recognized in 1991 by the Louisiana Press Association with inclusion in the group's "50-Year Club." Dawson's later newspaper duties including the recruitment of reporters and photographers, most being recent college graduates who were seeking a start in journalism in the small- to medium-sized market that Alexandria offers. In that capacity, he often worked with the newspaper's veteran managing editor and later executive editor Adras P. LaBorde, I and business editor Cecil Williams. During much of Dawson's tenure, the newspaper was owned by the family of Joe D. Smith, Jr., and his first wife, Jane Wilson Smith, of Alexandria. Smith, like Dawson, completed a half century with the paper. When Smith retired in 1996, the newspaper was purchased by a firm in Indianapolis, Indiana, which subsequently sold to Gannett. With some 40,000 subscribers, The Town Talk is the largest circulating newspaper in central Louisiana.