Paper mill closure: 'Everything I have in life, including a wife, came from the mill' | Guestview
The Navy moved my family from Panama City, Panama, to Panama City, Florida, in 1961.
The summer after finishing Gulf Coast Community College, I managed to work two jobs, a four-hour job as “port sampler” for the National Marine Fisheries and in the labor pool of the paper mill. Inside the mill, the labor pool was known as the “Bull Gang.” The work pattern for the summer was eight hours in the mill, come home and clean up, and work four hours at the marinas around the county.
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The summer of 1974 went by really quick and I attended the University of Florida in the fall. One worry I did not have at school was money, enough was earned to cover all expenses of the next three quarters of school.
I planned to come home during the summer of ’75 and repeat work at the mill. However, a poor business climate reduced hiring at the mill and I had no mill job. Found plenty of work that summer but the pay was not the mill equivalent. Before I returned to school the following year, I married my high school sweetheart and we both returned to Gainesville. We made it through another school year to the summer of ’76.
The mill hired me to work that summer in the machine room where the reels of paper were made. My job was to feed paper recycled from box plants into a dry end pulper. The work was shift work, eight-hour shifts. The best part of the job was having overtime to “double over.” That summer work allowed for an expanded paycheck as I got a lot of 16-hour work days.
Only two more quarters of school left on my chemical engineering degree. The next focus was deciding on a career. My wife and I visited three career opportunities: petro-chemical in Houston, textile in Georgia and paper in Panama City. In March 1977, we moved back to Panama City to begin a career with International Paper.
In 1930, construction teams came to Bay County to build a paper mill on the site of a former sawmill in Millville. With the country suffering during the Great Depression, one of the men looking for work moved his young family from Louisiana to help build the mill. Sam Barbay was in that construction group. After the mill started producing paper in 1931, Sam continued to work in the mill with the maintenance group. Sam retired from the mill in 1957 and my father-in-law, “D” Barbay, began his career at the mill.
“D” had a successful career, retiring in 1987. I finished my career in July 2019 with a little more than 42 years. Toward the end of my career, my job included providing presentations and tours for customers, visitors, and community groups.
I actually continued tours as requested after retirement. The last group I toured through the mill was Leadership Bay with the Bay County Chamber of Commerce. That group, like the many groups before, heard the story about the mill's history and my history and my wife’s family history. I would leave a quote with the group, “everything I have in life, including a wife, came from the mill.”
A lot of families prospered working at the paper mill. A lot of local families had connections to the paper mill. I am saddened for the families that were at the mill when it closed that will not enjoy the full career opportunity my wife’s family had for more than 90 years.
Tem Fontaine has lived in Bay County for 61 years and his professional career at the paper mill spanned 42 years. He is now retired, but remains active with the Historical Society of Bay County and the Bay County Chamber of Commerce and its Military Affairs Committee.
This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Panama City paper mill provided good lives for local families | Guestview
