He wasn’t born in a log cabin, but Jamie Wallace likes to think that had he ever decided to run for political office he could have poor-mouthed with the best of them.

He attended the old Orrville School, where they didn’t get electricity until he was in the 7th grade. The one-room schoolhouse consisted of three different classes, all taught by the same teacher.

The young boy who loved history so much that he minored in it in college never dreamed that he would one day emerge from such humble beginnings to play a part in some of the most historic events of the last 50 years.

As a reporter for The Selma Times-Journal, he covered the glory days of Shug Jordan and Bear Bryant. When blacks in Selma straightened up their backs and demanded the right to vote, his coverage was cited for its accuracy and even-handed approach.

And later, when the national spotlight moved on, he stayed to devote much of his professional career to convincing the world that there was more to Selma and its people than grainy newsreel footage of Bloody Sunday.

Now, nearly 50 years after leaving that one-room schoolhouse, Jamie Wallace is certain of this much: It all went by too quickly.

From his days as a cub reporter to his deepening community involvement to his steadying hand at the helm of the Selma-Dallas Chamber of Commerce, Wallace has been a tireless ambassador for the city he loves.

When he steps down at the end of this month after 16 years as president of the Chamber of Commerce, he can look back on a career that made a difference.

A graduate of the University of Alabama with a degree in journalism and history, Wallace went to work at The Times-Journal in August 1958 “on a trial basis.” Little did he suspect that his most profound lessons in history still lay ahead of him.

“One of the first stories I ever covered involved a court case in which the county sued several insurance companies over the cupola of the clock tower falling into the third floor of the courthouse,” recalls Wallace. “They brought in a lot of technical experts on both sides, which gave me fits trying to make sense of all their testimony. I think the county finally got $12,000 out of it, which didn’t even cover the cost of their attorneys’ fees.

“Anyway, that was my introduction to journalism.”

The advanced course came several years later as Selma became the focal point – at least for a time – of the civil rights movement.

As the local reporter, Wallace viewed those events far differently than did his national and international counterparts. He and his fellow reporters at The Times-Journal were writing not just about impersonal events, but about people they knew and lived close to and went to church with, and that took a special kind of courage.

Explains Wallace, “I think uppermost in your mind at the time is the thought, ‘We’re still going to be here when this is all over. These other people are going to move on.’ I don’t think it was till we were a little further down the road that we realized just what a unique period of history that really was.”

Later, The Times-Journal coverage of those events was cited by a national peer review as an example of what good reporting should be: factual and thorough. While Wallace was editor, The Associated Press named The Times-Journal “most improved daily newspaper in Alabama.”

Selma was rich in other stories, as well. “I often tell political science professors that Selma should be their classroom,” Wallace chuckles. “They could bring their class here and stay a few days and it would be better than any textbook. If they stay long enough, they’ll see it all here.”

Eventually, Wallace left The Times-Journal to become editor and co-owner of the Selma Free Press. When that venture failed to pan out, he became the news-sports-and-public affairs director for Talton Broadcasting Co., which operated what are today radio stations WDXX and WHBB.

Of the difference between reporting a story for newspapers and for radio, Wallace says, “I learned how to reduce the length of a story considerably in order to get it into 30 seconds. You learn brevity in radio. You also learn to read real fast.”

Gradually, Wallace was drawn to become more involved in the community he covered. “I’ve always felt like if you live in a community, you ought to put something back,” he says by way of explanation.

He organized the Dallas County Schools all-county football awards banquet. He served as director of the Parks and Recreation Department’s senior boys baseball for three years, during which they won two state titles and two world series. He volunteered as a board member of the West Central Alabama Rehabilitation Center and as chairman of the corporate board of Alabama Easter Seals. For more than 25 years he has served as chairman of the Dallas County Department of Human Resources board of directors.

And the list goes on.

Of his work with the rehab center, Wallace says, “To see people with disabilities become active citizens of the community and to see them come alive and begin to function and to live full lives … that’s probably one of my passions.”

In 1986 his career took yet another turn when he became president of the Chamber of Commerce. Spearheading the economic development efforts of an area that had been mired in poverty for generations proved to be Wallace’s biggest challenge.

“I’ve lain awake many nights,” he confides, “crying over things that have happened to us over which we had absolutely no control. I’ll never forget when Beech Aircraft closed. That came on the heels of Craig Field closing just a few years earlier.

“It didn’t mean that our people didn’t work hard, it didn’t mean that our leadership didn’t work hard. It was just something that happened. And there have been others like that over the years – too many, in fact. It’s extremely frustrating. It just breaks my heart to see.”

But there are glimmers of hope. His position with the chamber has given Wallace a platform from which to point out the city’s strengths. To those whose only impressions of Selma still revolve around what took place on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, he urges simply “come spend a day with me.”

“We’ve had so many people who have preconceived ideas of Selma when they come here, and they leave with an entirely different picture,” Wallace says. “Unfortunately, there are a lot of other people who have preconceived ideas who we don’t get to talk to.”

As an example of the city’s ability to turn a negative into a positive, Wallace cites the growth of black heritage tourism here through such venues as the tours conducted by the National Voting Rights Museum.

“Nobody else was doing that when we started doing it back in 1988,” he says. “Now, hardly a day goes by that you don’t see buses going to this city.”

Ironically, Wallace says some of the most ingrained preconceptions exist among Selma’s own residents.

“All too often,” he suggests, “we’re our own worst critics. I think people on the outside perceive us in a much better light than we do ourselves. We’ve got to get rid of that negative thinking, that negative attitude, and substitute a positive realism. You don’t want to adopt a Pollyanna, everything is wonderful attitude, but neither do you want to paint everything a dull gray color, either.”

As he gets ready to relinquish the post to which he has dedicated so much of his life, Wallace notes that he’ll be around to offer advice – “that is, if anybody wants it.”

“As I told someone the other day,” he says, “I’m not leaving the world. Not yet, anyway.”

Jaime Wallace may not have traveled far from Orrville, but he’s come a long way from that one-room schoolhouse.