Tommy Ayres

Tommy Ayres, 68, died March 6, 2005, of cancer at a Lafayette, La. hospital.

He worked at the Dallas Times Herald and as a pioneering investigative reporter at WFAA-TV (Channel 8) in Dallas. He left the Times Herald and was named general manager of the weekly Balch Springs Sentinel in 1967. That same year, he purchased the Seagoville Star.

Ayres started his journalism career in Louisiana with the Monroe Morning World. He came to the Times Herald in 1964 from the Orange Leader.

Kevin Carmody

Kevin Carmody died March 9, 2005.

He was known for his dogged reporting on environmental issues and was an Austin American-Statesman reporter since 2000.

Carmody was one of the founding members of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

After graduating from Marquette in 1980, he worked at newspapers including the Milwaukee Sentinel and The Beaumont Enterprise, The Daily Progress in Charlottesville, Va., and the Daily Southtown in suburban Chicago.

Leslie P. Daughtry Sr.

Leslie P. Daughtry Sr., 75, publisher emeritus of The Galveston County Daily News, died March 13, 2005, after a 20-year battle with cancer.

Daughtry’s 35-year career in newspapers began at The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser.

He came to Galveston in 1967 when newspaper entrepreneur B. Carmage Walls purchased the Galveston paper.

He ran the paper for 20 years and remained president of Galveston Newspapers Inc. until 1997.

Franklin Ross Pardue

Franklin Ross Pardue, 81, died March 8, 2005, in San Antonio.

Pardue was a third-generation publisher and editor of the Alvarado Bulletin, founded by his grandfather in 1888.

Except for a year in the military, Pardue spent his life at the Bulletin until he sold the newspaper in the late 1980s.

John Harold Shaw

John Harold Shaw died suddenly Feb. 20, 2005.

He was editor of the Waxahachie Daily Light, DeSoto Today and the Bonham Favorite, and once owned and edited the Ladonia News and Honey Grove Signal-Citizen.

James Werst Jr.

James Lee “Mike” Werst Jr., 89, died on March 19, 2005, in Big Lake, where he had been publisher of The Big Lake Wildcat since 1947.

Werst was born on Dec. 18, 1915, in San Angelo, where his grandfather and father had worked as printers on the old San Angelo Weekly Standard.

His son, David Werst, and wife Ramona of Big Lake, currently operate the Wildcat.