Emory Cunningham

Emory Cunningham, as president and publisher of the Progressive Farmer Company since 1968, led a former, small farm magazine publishing firm to become the dominant magazine and book-publishing business in the South. Mr. Cunningham was born in Kansas, Alabama, on March 17, 1921. He graduated from Carbon Hill high School in 1938 and then entered Gulf Coast Junior College, Perkinston Mississippi, on a football scholarship. Following his military service as a navy pilot in the South Pacific in World War II, he entered Auburn University and graduated in 1948 with a B.S. degree in agriculture. In 1948 he joined the Progressive Farmer Company as an advertising salesman and in 1968 was elected president and chief executive officer of the company and its subsidiary organizations, all but one of which were organized under his direction. The Progressive Farmer Company now includes these divisions: Southern Living which emphasizes good living in today's South; Progressive Farmer now beginning its 92nd year of publication crusading for improved southern rural leadership, strong farm organizations, higher rural incomes, improved rural health facilities, and more economical crop and livestock production; and Decorating & Craft Ideas, the largest commercial printing operation between Atlanta and Dallas in the Mid-South; Oxmoor House, Inc., a book publishing and marketing division with 85 different books marketed in practically all states. The success of the progressive Farmer Company has led to national, business-oriented assignments for its president in several fields, such as director, and for two terms president, of the Agricultural Publishers Association; director of the Adult Bureau of Circulations; director, Birmingham Trust National Bank; director, Discover America Travel Organizations; Board of Governors, International Insurance Seminars, Inc,; and director, Alabama Gas Corporation. Mr. Cunningham has served numerous Birmingham cultural and civic groups in a variety of capacities, such as the Advisory Board, Salvation Army; Director and Executive committee of the Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce; Advisory Board, University of Alabama in Birmingham where he is also a guest lecturer; Advisory Board, Boy Scouts of America; Chairman, Alabama Committee of the Newcomen Society in North America; Director, Birmingham Kiwanis Club; Board of Trustees, Birmingham Symphony; Board of Directors, Birmingham Museum of Art; and Board of Directors, Alabama Heart Association. He was married to the former Jeanne Loftis of Kentucky, Alabama, and they had four children: James, David, Sara, and Mary. They were active members of the Canterbury United Methodist Church where Mr. Cunningham was a teacher of an adult Sunday School class and a member of his church's administrative board. Emory Cunninghaam died on January 24, 2000.