Johnathan Capps

Johnathan Capps, 61, died Dec. 24, 2001 from a heart attack. He was a columnist for the Ellis County Press in Ferris during the 1990s and 2000. He also collected police reports from local authorities.

Alva Mary Coley

Alva Mary Coley, 80, died Jan. 14, 2002 at Doctors Hospital in Dallas of congestive heart failure. She was an executive secretary in the advertising department for 28 years at The Dallas Morning News.

Dean Forrest

Dean Forrest, 85, died Jan. 18, 2002 from a heart attack. He covered sports for the Borger News Herald for 25 years and was active in the business community there.

Harlan Hobbs

Harlan S. Hobbs, 90, died Jan. 24, 2002 in a Tulare, Calif., rehabilitation hospital after a brief illness. He wrote The Observer column for the El Campo Leader-News. He was a former manager of the El Campo Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture.

Thad Johnson

Thad Johnson, 87, died Jan. 23, 2002 in Louisiana. He worked for 28 years for The Beaumont Enterprise where he was sports editor from 1943-71 when he became the newspaper’s Louisiana sports editor, operating out of an office in Lake Charles, La. He began covering sports for the newspaper in 1933 and before that delivered newspapers on his bicycle.

He was a founder of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum.

William King

William George “Dub” King, 85, died Jan. 18, 2002 in Fort Worth. He was well-known for work in television, newspapers and public relations. He was a sports writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and then was sports information director for Texas A&M.

Clarence L. Martin

Clarence L. Martin, 80, died Jan. 5, 2002 at Brentwood Nursing Home in Dallas. He was a pressman for The Dallas Morning News from 1955-86.

Truman R. McMahan

Truman R. “Mac” McMahan, 86, died Jan. 12, 2002.

He worked at The Houston Post and then had a 22-year career with the Colorado County Citizen in Columbus. He married Elizabeth “Liza” McLeary in 1946, two years after she purchased sole interest in the newspaper in 1944. They were listed as co-editors starting in 1946.

They sold the newspaper in 1968. He is credited with bringing modern photography to the newspaper and with building its first darkroom.

John McPholan, Jr.

John J. McPholan Jr., 73, died Jan. 9, 2002 of pneumonia at Phelps Memorial Hospital Center in New York. He was an expeditor/dispatcher in the advertising department of The Dallas Morning News from 1963-93.

Ira Shackelford

Ira Jennings Shackelford, 94, died Feb. 4, 2002 in Austin.

He was a newspaper pressman for 55 years and worked at the Austin American-Statesman, San Antonio Express-News and Wichita Falls Times-Record-News.

J.A. “Jimmy” Wisch

By Steve Wisch

Having climbed from the poverty of the Great Depression to the pinnacle of American Jewish journalism, Jessard Aaron “Jimmy” Wisch, 85, publisher and editor of the Texas Jewish Post, died in his sleep late Jan. 26, 2002.

With his wife Rene at his side, Wisch began publishing the TJP in 1947, having returned to Fort Worth, after serving in the United States Army in the World War II.

The couple set up shop in their one-room apartment on a kitchen table. Over the next 55 years, Wisch spearheaded the newspaper into a thriving weekly, serving the Dallas and Fort Worth Jewish communities.

Whether combatting anti-semitism, battling for the State of Israel or calculating the odds at his weekly poker game, his zest for life was unmistakable.

Wisch interviewed at least five U.S. Presidents, prime ministers of Israel and countless national and international leaders.

He found himself in the midst of the Six Day War, which broke out while he and wife Rene were in Israel in June of 1967. As a result, the TJP’s readers were provided with highly personalized, on-the-scene reporting of Israel’s dramatic victory over the coalition of Arab nations determined to end its existence.

Both the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Houston Chronicle, commissioned him to report on the Middle East and on President Richard Nixon’s historic trip to the Soviet Union in 1972. He was the only American Jewish journalist to be accredited for the trip.