P. O. Davis

P. O. Davis
Born	August 15, 1890 Skinhead Community, near Athens, Alabama
Died	1973 API, Auburn, Alabama
Education	B.S., Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University)
Occupation(s)	Agricultural Editor Cooperative Extension Educator Administrator
Spouse	Mildred Kilburn
Parent(s)	Richard Scoggins and Milinda Elizabeth (Barker) Davis

Posey Oliver "P.O" Davis (1890–1973) was an American educator and administrator, as well as an agricultural editor and broadcaster. He served as director of the Alabama Extension Service (now known as the Alabama Cooperative Extension System) for the longest term in the organization's history. During the 1940s and 1950s, Davis became an advocate for farming and Cooperative Extension work.

Early life

Davis was born in Skinhead, a rural community near Athens, Alabama, on August 15, 1890, to Richard Scoggins Davis and Mildred Elizabeth Barker. In a family genealogy written before his death, Davis recalled Skinhead as the place where his family settled after being displaced from McMinn County, Tennessee, by the Civil War.

After working as a public school teacher from 1909 to 1912, Davis enrolled at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (API, now Auburn University) in Auburn, Alabama, graduating in 1916. From 1916 to 1917, he worked as a horticulturist for the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station before taking a job as an agriculturist with Southern Railway. He also worked briefly as an assistant boys club agent.

He married Mildred Kilburn, of Florence, in 1918.

Davis worked briefly for Progressive Farmer before returning to API in 1920 as an agricultural editor for the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station and the Alabama Extension Service.

Work at Alabama Polytechnic Institute

After becoming editor, Davis became involved with radio broadcasting.

Birmingham News publisher Victor Hanson offered API $2,500 to establish a radio station to provide educational information to farmers and other audiences. Davis recalled to then-Auburn University president Ralph Brown Draughon that the donation was not enough to purchase broadcast equipment or operate the station daily. Then-Alabama Extension Director Luther Duncan feared negative publicity if they refused the donation.

Davis, as the institution's editor and publicist, was assigned the task of securing funds and personnel to operate the station, WMAV, which was installed on the evening of February 22, 1923. The Extension Service had spent far more than the initial $2,500 donation. "We pecked and struggled as best we could with the equipment that was almost obsolete by the time it was installed," he recalled.

Davis worked with Alabama Extension agents throughout the state to organize radio listening sessions with farmers and their families. Extension Home Demonstration Agent Thalia Bell operates a radio at the Sandy Creek-East View Club, Tallapoosa County, Feb. 4, 1926.

After acquiring new equipment, Davis moved the facility to Comer Hall and acquired new call letters: WAPI. Davis also worked with agents to organize radio listening parties for audiences throughout the state.

After unsuccessful attempts to affiliate with a national network — NBC or CBS — Davis moved the station to Birmingham after securing a pledge from city officials to provide half of the annual operating costs, totaling approximately $20,000.

Davis also negotiated an arrangement with the University of Alabama and Alabama College at Montevallo (now University of Montevallo) to operate the station in partnership with API as a cost-cutting measure.

The arrangement with Birmingham and the other two institutions worked until the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, after which the city was forced to withdraw from the deal. This disruption in income forced Davis to lease the station.

WAPI provided the three institutions with a broadcast presence and ensured a "nice annual return on their investments" from about 1922 to 1961.

"Some day, I hope a competent historian will dig up all of the facts and write much more in detail than I have about WAPI — a comprehensive history," Davis stated in the Draughon letter. "I believe that it would be a story well worth writing and reading if done accurately and intelligently."

Publicist and executive secretary

While serving as WAPI general manager, Davis continued his duties as editor of the Extension Service and the Experiment Station. His work as an Extension agricultural editor served as a model for Extension programs in other states seeking to reach farmers and other audiences through print and broadcast media. Many of Davis' staff people worked with farm-related publications, agencies, and businesses.

Records show that in 1925, he traveled almost 14,000 miles by train and more than 3,300 miles by car to carry out his work.

Colleagues of Davis recall that he often corrected grammatical errors in reports and other documents, even after he became Extension director.

Extension director

From 1933 to 1936, he also served Alabama Extension as executive secretary and registrar. Following predecessor Luther Duncan's appointment as API president in 1937, Davis was appointed director of the Alabama Extension Service, becoming the longest tenured director in Alabama Extension history.

Davis was considered an idealist who was less politically motivated than Duncan. Some criticized Davis for not identifying closely enough with farmers. Others viewed him as an extrovert with communicative and organizational skills.

Davis's leadership during the Great Depression and through the war years allowed him to influence federal legislation throughout the Roosevelt years.

Davis was a public speaker, sharing his views on the future of agriculture and Extension's educational mission throughout the South and the nation.

Davis also expanded Alabama Extension's presence in print and broadcast media. He developed working relationships with Alabama newspapers and with farm home publications. Extension educational broadcasts were aired six days a week on most broadcast outlets in Alabama. In addition, Davis launched "This Month in Rural Alabama," an 8-page tabloid that ran as an insert in 97 Alabama weekly newspapers, with a publishing run of 100,000 weekly copies.

Views on industrialization

Davis was concerned by the farm surpluses associated with improved cotton farming methods, as well as the region's reliance on the crop. He advocated for farm diversification. "It is plain to me that cotton, upon which we are relying very largely for money income, must have help," wrote Davis in 1937. "It is also plain that livestock and poultry are cotton's best helpers."

P. O. Davis Drive, named in honor of Davis, on the Auburn University campus

A lifelong Democrat member who maintained a working relationship with the Roosevelt Administration, Davis feared the social and cultural effects of industrialization, reflected in the growing number of Americans who were working for employers. "So, individual freedom as our ancestor knew it is largely gone because one who works for another is not exactly free in the sense that one is who finances his business and works for himself," Davis stated late in his Extension career.

He believed that farmers, along with small storekeepers and small businessmen, were essential to preserving freedom in America, because they were "part capitalist and part worker."

This Jeffersonian mindset accounts for his interest in and sympathy for the Farm Bureau concept.

Davis believed that Farm Bureaus would enable farmers to withstand the influence of big government and big business.

Clash with Jim Folsom

Davis's goal of building up Extension to reach as many rural Alabamians as possible was criticized by people such as Gov. James E. "Big Jim" Folsom, who maintained that this focus often came at the expense of other agencies. As ex-officio chairman of the API Board of Trustees, Folsom, working with API trustee Gould Beech, filed charges at a trustees meeting February 21, 1947, claiming that Alabama agriculture had declined partly because of Davis' mismanagement of Extension. Folsom also alleged that Extension failed to cooperate with other state and federal farm agencies, controlled the Alabama Farm Bureau, and was too politically engaged. Davis was cleared by the trustees, who commended him for his work.

Retirement

In the 1940s, there was a dispute between Davis and Elbert H. Norton, state school superintendent, to succeed Luther Duncan as API president, who had died in 1947.

Davis retired in 1959 and was succeeded by E. T. York. He spent the last few years of his life compiling a genealogy of the Davis family and serving on several professional and charitable boards. He also served as president of the Alabama Writers Council from 1962-63.

Among his honors, Progressive Farmer magazine voted him "Man of the Year" in Agriculture and the American Farm Bureau awarded him a medal and certificate in 1945. He was also listed in Who's Who in America for 1952-53.