2009 Texas Press Obituaries

JANUARY 2009

Clarence Gentry
Clarence Henry "Scoop" Gentry, 93, died Jan. 3, 2009, of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Grand Prairie Healthcare Center.
Gentry was a pioneering black journalist. In 1948, he was one of the first black reporters in Jim Wells County.
He wrote for the Dallas Express, Dallas Post Tribune and Houston Informer and worked for 60 years in newspapers. He delivered The Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald in his youth.

Lawrence Morrow
Lawrence Morrow, 92, died Jan. 4, 2009, at a nursing home after a long illness. He was a printer with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from 1934 to 1970, starting full time in 1942.

Patrick J. Galvin
Patrick J. Galvin, 87, of Twin Rivers, NJ, died Jan. 8, 2009.  
He was a veteran of the U.S. Army during WWII and served in China as a radio specialist.
In 1946 he became the first editor employed by W.E. Berger after purchase of the Hondo Anvil Herald. He later worked for the San Antonio Light, and was an editor for the Seguin Enterprise. He also worked for newspapers in Chicago and New York.

Ray Cole
Ray Cole, 87, died Jan 14, 2009, in Houston. He worked for the Odessa American for 46 years before retiring as general manager in 1991.

Bill Winfrey
Bill Winfrey, 75, died Jan. 15, 2009, at East Texas Medical Center in Athens of complications of heart disease.
Winfrey was a self-taught photographer who twice captured historic images for The Dallas Morning News - an April 2, 1957, photo of a deadly funnel could in Oakcliff and the Nov. 22, 1963 photo many consider the definitive photo of a manacled Lee Harvey Oswald raising his fist.
Winfrey went to work for The News in 1948 when he was 15 years old. In March 1957, Winfrey transferred to the photo department.

Merle Luker
Merle Luker, 91, died Jan. 15, 2009, at Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital in Beaumont. 
He was co-owner of Orange County Publishing, Co., Inc., Four Star Press and publisher of the Vidor Vidorian and Vidorian Shopper.
After serving in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific during World War II, Luker resumed publishing the Grapeland Messenger with his father and brother Ed.
Luker took the helm of The Vidorian in March 1959, later buying out his partners.

Brett A. Murphy
Brett A Murphy, 43, died Jan. 28, 2009.
He was in circulation at the new Branufels Herald Zeitung and worked for newspapers for 20 years.

Larry Gittings
Larry Gittings, 57, died Jan. 29, 2009, in Weatherford, Okla., where he was managing editor of the Daily News. Gittings also worked at the Wichita Falls Times Record News, the Graham Leader and Gainesville Daily Register.

Jaxie Edith Morgan
Jaxie Edith Slatter Morgan, 56, died Jan. 31, 2009, at Hospice of East Texas in Tyler following a short battle with cancer. In 1973, she began a 35-year career with the Rains County Leader. She was associate editor and second-in-command for the past 13 years.

FEBRUARY 2009

Shirley Terry Smith
Shirley Terry Smith, 82, died Feb. 2, 2009, after a brief illness.
She was a reporter, photographer and writer and worked for the Tyler Star, Whitehouse Journal and the Tri-County Leader.
She was also an author.

Eloy Aguilar
Eloy Aguilar, 72, was buried Feb. 3, 2009.
He was a journalist for more than 40 years and began with the Brownsville Herald. He worked in South and Central America, Puerto Rico and Mexico City for the Associated Press. He retired in 2006.

Bernice Brelsford
Bernice Alice Brelsford, 88, died Feb. 3, 2009, at Guadalupe Valley Nursing Center in Seguin.
Brelsford had a second career as a columnist and from 1967-71 she wrote the Our Town feature for the Nixon News, then owned by her aunt Frances Brelsford. She also wrote for the LaNernia News, 1971-73; for the Wilson County News from 1983-88 and for the Floresville Chronicle Journal from 1988-98. She continued her column for the Cow Country Courier until a few weeks before her death.

Karen Pendergast
Karen Pendegast, 70, died Feb. 4, 2009, at Mother Frances Hospital following a two-month illness.
Pendegast was co-publisher and managing editor of The Winnsboro News, which she and her husband Tom purchased in June 1985. She wrote a column and all the obituaries.
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, she worked for a weekly in Central Texas and was a broadcast journalist at KRLD-AM TV, the first female hired on the news staff.

Fred C. Latcham Jr.
Fred C. Latcham Jr., 91, publisher emeritus of the Beeville Bee-Picayune, died Feb. 11, 2009, after a long illness.
Latcham joined the staff in 1953 and worked as publisher for some four decades before turning the reins over to his sons, Chip and Jeff Latcham.
he was a past president of the South Texas Press Association and received the Texas Press Association's Golden 50 Award in 2003.
In 2000, he was preceded in death by his wife, Joyce Atkins Latcham, daughter of George H. Atkins, publisher of the Picayune and then the Bee-Picayune following a merger in 1928.

Jon Pare Kinslow
Jon Pare Kinslow, 75, died Feb. 11, 2009, at Arlington memorial Hospital from complications of colon cancer.
He graduated in 1955 from Texas A&M University, where he was editor of The Battalion. Later that year, he became a reporter for The Dallas Morning News, where he had interned in 1954. He left in 1967 to work for other publications but returned in 1981 as assistant city editor and night city editor. He accepted an early retirement package in 1999.

Clester Ray Moore
Clester Ray Buddy Moore, 80, died Feb. 13, 2009.
Legally blind since birth, Moore began work in newspapers as a 12-year-old printer's devil. At 14, he penned a sports column. He worked for the Silsbee Bee, the Orange Leader and Houston Post.
With his wife, Jeanie, Moore launched the weekly Hardin County Messenger (now the Hardin County News) in the 1970s. He also worked for the Kountze News and in 1974 bought it, then sold it in 1991. He stayed at the Kountze Journal, then closed it seven years later.

Mary Collins
Mary Collins died Feb. 13, 2009.
She was a longtime staff member in the composition departments of the Jasper Newsboy and the Newton County News. Her husband, Peter N. Collins, also deceased, was editor of the Newsboy for more than 25 years.

Marshall Green
Marshall “Buddy” Green, 57, died Feb. 22, 2009, at Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital in San Antonio after a lengthy battle with liver disease.
Green began working at the Valley Morning Star in Harlingen in 1984 as a sports writer. He was promoted from deputy sports editor in 1999. He served as sports editor until 2007 when he retired.

Helen Reeburgh
Helen Focht Reeburgh, 93, died Feb. 24, 2009, in Pampa.
She was a correspondent and a columnist for the Beaumont Enterprise and later the Port Arthur News.

Ann McKay
Ann Bryan Mariano McKay, 76, died Feb. 25, 2009, of Alzheimer’s disease.
She worked at the San Angelo Standard-Times as a reporter during the 1950s. In 1959 she began working in Germany for Overseas Family. She was sent to Saigon in 1965 to open an Asian edition of Overseas Weekly and she later fought the Pentagon to keep it on newsstands for GIs after investigative reporting on war profiteers, officers involved in the black market and racial prejudice in the Army. 
After returning to the U.S. she joined The Washington Post. She retired in 1996.

MARCH 2009

Hunter Schmidt Jr.
Hunter Schmidt Jr., 75, died March 2, 2009, of complications from congestive heart failure at Medical Center of Arlington.
He started his career as a sports writer at The Beaumont Enterprise and covered sports and police at the Tyler Morning Telegraph before moving to Dallas in the early 1960s to join the Dallas Times Herald as county reporter. He started teaching at University of Texas Arlington in 1968 and taught journalism at Southern Methodist University.

Charles Bell, Jr.
Charles Raymond Bell, Jr., 77, died at his home in Waxahachie, on March 5, 2009, after a struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 
His first full-time writing job at age 16 was a reporter for the Hillsboro Daily Mirror.
He left Hillsboro to join the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and later worked with the Temple Daily Telegram, Charlotte Observer, Waco News Tribune and Times Herald, Dallas Times Herald, The Associated Press, The Fort Worth Press, The Dallas Morning News, Focus Daily News and various other publications. He retired from The Dallas Morning News after more than 20 years service.

Ann H. Holmes 
Ann H. Holmes, 86, died March 6, 2009. She had been hospitalized for congestive heart failure.
Holmes joined the Houston Chronicle in 1942 at age 20 as copy messenger. She served as military editor, social services writer and court reporter while waiting for an opening on the arts staff. She became arts editor and chief critic in 1948, holding the position for 40 years. After retiring, she worked part time as a critic at large until 1999.

Bob Bruce
Bob Bruce, 75, died March 13, 2009, in Lubbock.
He was a multi-beat reporter at the Abilene Reporter-News and joined the staff in 1959. He retired in 1998 after 39 years.
Karron Chapman 
Karron Sue Chapman, 65, died March 15, 2009, in an Austin hospital.
For several years in the early 1980s she wrote a column for the Greenville Herald-Banner titled “What’s Cooking?”

Carlene Jane Toney 
Carlene Jane Toney, 75, died March 19, 2009, from complications of Parkinson’s disease. 
She and her husband, David, were owners of the Brazoria County News, Calhoun County Times (with his brother, Tom Toney) in Port Lavaca, the Oil City Visitor in Sour Lake, the Palacios Beacon and Needville’s Gulf Coast Tribune. 
They moved to the West Brazos area and started The News in October 1962. 

Frank Lightfoot
Frank Lightfoot, 70, died March 20, 2009. Lightfoot was sports editor and managing editor of The Pine Bluff (Ark.) Commercial from 1970 to 1985. His earlier journalism career included a year as managing editor of the Denton Record-Chronicle.

Gerald Raun
Gerald Raun, 76, of Alpine, died March 25, 2009, at Big Bend Regional Medical Center in Alpine.
Raun was a former employee of the San Angelo Standard-Times and a former publisher of the Devil’s River News in Sonora. 
In 1989 he moved to Alpine and served as publisher of the Alpine Avalanche. He retired in 1993.
Before entering the newspaper business, the Maryville, Mo., native, who had a Ph.D. in zoology, taught biology at then-North Texas State University in Denton and Angelo State University in San Angelo.
He served nearly 10 years as editor of the Texas Journal of Science and was a fellow and honor life member of the Texas Academy of Science.

Harless Wade 
Harless Wade, 80, died March 28, 2009, in Dallas. He was a sportswriter for The Dallas Morning News from 1956 to 1994 and was best known for his coverage of golf.Burnis Lawrence
Burnis Koth Lawrence, 86, died March 5, 2009, in Alpine.
Lawrence was a World War II veteran and retired Air Force colonel. He was a past president of the South Texas Press Association (1977-78) and the recipient of STPA's 2003 Chester Evans Award. He earned TPA's Golden 50 Award in 2003.
His newspaper jobs in South Texas included stops in Beeville, Sinton, Lampasas, Refugio, Weslaco, Seguin, Mathis and three different stints with the Hondo Anvil Herald, where he was publisher during his tenure as STPA president. His final newspaper job was with the Alpine Avalanche, where he retired several years ago.

APRIL 2009

Nell McGuinness Gray
Nell McGuinness Gray, 86, of Katy, died April 5, 2009.
As business manager, she helped her husband, Bob Gray, found the Houston Business Journal in 1961. It was the first weekly of its kind to serve a major metropolitan area. Cordovan Corporation, Publishers, went on to open 11 other business journals in major U.S. cities. 
She retired in the early 1980s but returned to the publishing business when her son and husband launched golfing magazines.

William O. Lewis
William O. “Zero” Lewis, 88, of Diboll, died April 18, 2009, in a Lufkin-area hospital. 
He wrote a personal column, “Comments From Corrigan,” that was published in the Corrigan Times from 1968-1999. 

Bill J. Glassford
Bill J. Glassford, 87, of Henrietta, died April 19, 2009, in Wichita Falls.
A weekly newspaper reporter, editor and publisher for half a century, Glassford was born Sept. 26, 1921, in the Buel Community in Johnson County, Texas. 
He attended Keene public schools and graduated from Alvarado High School. He enrolled as a journalism student at then-North Texas State College in Denton and in 1941 joined the U.S. Coast Guard. 
During World War II, he served aboard the attack transport U.S.S. Dickman and participated in the invasions of North Africa and Italy. 
He earned a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Texas in 1949 and entered the weekly newspaper business in Levelland. 
He married Jo Ann Thompson in Levelland in 1951. The Glassfords purchased the Morton Tribune in 1953.
In 1961, the Glassfords purchased the Clay County Leader in Henrietta, operated the newspaper until 1995, and sold to Phil and Lesa Major.

MAY 2009

Lucy Jane Dodd Eastham
Lucy Jane Dodd Eastman, 86, died May 13, 2009, at Methodist Hospital in Houston.
A native of Beaumont, Eastham was born Nov. 26, 1922. She worked as a reporter for the Beaumont Enterprise in the 1950s and the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate in the 1960s. She moved to Houston in 1970. She was a lifelong member of the Junior League and Pi Beta Phi.

Mark Gilmer
Mark Brian Gilmer, 54, died May 17, 2009. at his residence in Robinson. His career included work as a copy editor for the Wichita Falls Times Record and for the Waco Tribune-Herald.

Earl Milton Morin Jr.
Earl Milton Morin Jr., 67, died May 20, 2009, while in Austin working on legislative issues in support of Texas newspapers.
Morin was owner and publisher emeritus of the Daily Court Review, Houston, a newspaper founded in 1889 and continuously owned by his family.
After retiring as publisher in 2004, he was named publisher emeritus and continued working tirelessly to promote the importance of public notices in newspapers on behalf of the Texas newspaper industry.

George Kellam
George D. Kellam, 89, of Fort Worth, died of pneumonia May 31, 2009, in Fort Worth. After serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II, Kellam was hired by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as a sportswriter in 1945. He wrote sports and outdoors articles for the newspaper and retired after a 40-year career in 1985. He also was the first president of the Texas Outdoor Writers Association.

JUNE 2009

Jeff Henderson
Jeff W. Henderson, 67, of San Marcos, died June 11, 2009. He received a bachelor’s degree in 1965 and a master’s degree in 1967 from Sul Ross State University. In the mid 1970s, he wrote a weekly syndicated travel column carried by 12 newspapers and a weekly humor column for the San Marcos Daily Record. He taught journalism and photography, and served as director of student publications for 37 years on the college/university level, spending the last 29 years at Texas State University in San Marcos. He was the executive director of the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association for 21 years. 

Royann McCartt
RoyAnn McCartt, 83, of Amarillo, died June 13, 2009. McCartt graduated from Amarillo High School and in 1946 graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. After graduation, she worked as a reporter for the Amarillo Globe-News.

Raymundo Holguin
Raymundo Holguin, 43, of Fort Worth, died June 14, 2009, in Fort Worth. Holguin was born in Brownfield and graduated from Brownfield High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University  of Texas at El Paso. His career included work for the Brownfield News and the Flower Mound News.

Linda Lowe
Linda Ruth Gamble Lowe, 60, of Calvert, died June 20 or 21, 2009. She was a columnist for The Calvert Tribune for six years. She wrote her last column on June 14 and it was published June 17.

Creekmore Fath
Creekmore Fath, 93, died June 25, 2009, of heart failure in Austin. A social and political activist, Fath was one of the founders of the Texas Observer in 1954. He ran gubernatorial primary campaigns for Frances “Sissy” Farenthold in 1972 and 1974 and worked in other campaigns including Ralph Yarborough’s runs for governor and the U.S. Senate.

Zaner Benetin
Zaner Faye Culberson Robison Benetin, 95, died June 27, 2009, in Royse City of congestive heart failure and pneumonia.
She was born near Gilmer on March 13, 1914. She married Robert Neil Robison in Corpus Christi in 1939. The couple founded the Caddo Mills Enterprise in 1940 and in 1942 helped found and a few months later purchased the Royse City American from Dr. A. Burton. 
In 1963 the Robisons started the Tawakoni News. They sold the newspaper to Southern Newspapers in the early 1970s. Robert Robison died in 1975. Larry Briscoe purchased the Towakani News in 1978. 
Zaner married John Bernard Benetin in 1979. For a short time they made their home in Puerto Rico, but U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall called her back to Texas to assist him with his newspaper, The Lakeside American.
Briscoe and Bill Slaughter owned the Tawakoni News from 1981 until January 2008, when they sold it to Van Zandt Newspapers LLC. While Briscoe and Slaughter owned the Tawakoni News, they started the Royse City News in 1985 with Zaner’s help.
She helped the Greenville Herald-Banner found the Royse City Leader in 1982, in her living room. The Leader ceased publication in 1986. She also assisted Slaughter in starting the Royse City News, once again, from her living room.
She was the recipient of a Texas Press Association Golden 50 Award in 1992, honoring her five decades of service to the newspaper industry in Texas. 

Dorothy Dupree
Dorothy Virginia Trone Howe Dupree, 98, died June 30, 2009, in Houston. 
She graduated from McMurrey College for Women in Jacksonville, Ill., in 1932. After graduation she joined the editorial staff at the Houston Post and worked for Oveta Culp Hobby as society editor until her marriage to Knox Briscoe Howe in 1941.
She went on to become a noted rancher, cattle breeder, horse breeder and horsewoman.

JULY 2009

Jimmy Carr
Jimmy Carr, 63, died July 10, 2009, in hospice at Wichita Falls.
Carr was managing editor of The Vernon Daily Record for 22 years and editor since March 2009.
Carr was born in Amarillo on June 21, 1946. He graduated from Vernon High School in 1964. He married Sandra Welborn in 1967 in Vernon. 
He attended Draughon’s Business College and Vernon Regional Junior College. 
He joined The Vernon Daily Record in 1968 as wire editor. It was then that he began writing a weekly column, “Carnival,” for the Sunday editorial page. 
In March 1977, Carr was given the title of regional editor, a position created to emphasize regional news and feature coverage, particularly in Foard and Hardeman counties.
In May 1986, Carr was named managing editor, succeeding Orlin L. Brewer. Carr then began writing a weekly Sunday editorial that won many awards over the ensuing 22 years.
Carr many times drove to Austin to judge other states’ annual better newspaper contests.

Warren C. Hope
Warren Clyde Hope, 75, of Greenville, died July 14, 2009, at Hunt Regional Medical Center in Greenville.
He was born April 23, 1934, in Celina. and was a graduate of Sherman High School. He served in the U.S. Navy briefly and began his newspaper career at the Sherman Herald Democrat, later moving to Greenville to work at the Herald-Banner. In 1965 he founded the Hunt County Shopper, which he owned and operated until his death.

Alyce F. Lambeth
Alyce F. “Flo” Lambeth, 78, of Austin/Cedar Park, died July 14, 2009, of natural causes.
She was born Sept. 18, 1930, and was an Odessa High School graduate. She obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. She was one of the first female editors of The Daily Texan. She worked for the Austin American-Statesman while in college and then at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 
She worked many years in public relations in Dallas and was married to the late Rod Lambeth. In 1964 she returned to Odessa and taught English and journalism at Permian High School for 32 years. She was named of the top composition teachers in the nation by the National Council of English teachers. 
At Permian High School, she coached the school’s only state winner in the UIL expository writing contest. As director of publications, he students won many newspaper and yearbook awards from Columbia University Scholastic Press Association. 
After retirement, she helped organize and then coordinated an after-school reading program for elementary school children. 

Burl McClellan
Burl McClellan, 78, of Granbury, died July 14, 2009, in a Fort Worth hospital.
McClellan earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from East Texas State College, now Texas A&M Unversity - Commerce. He was a U.S. Navy veteran and served during the Korean War.
He was the author of “The Tall Texan,” a regular column in the Hood County News. He also wrote features and obituaries for the newspaper. Previously, he was news editor of the Memphis Democrat and the Winnsboro News, and farm and ranch editor for the Amarillo Globe-News. 
McClellan and his wife, Day, moved to Hood County in the early 1970s. 
Genevieve Ratcliff
Genevieve Turney Ratcliff, 80, died July 9, 2009.
Born in Houston County on Jan. 7, 1929, she was the daughter of Theodore and Florence McManners Turney. She married Ben Francis Ratcliff in 1946. In 1948, the couple founded Recorder Publishing, which publishes the Fort Worth Commercial Recorder, a publication in print since 1903. 
Fifteen years ago the company was incorporated under the name Ratcliff Publications Inc. Business will continue as usual at the Commercial Recorder with daughter Janet G. Ratcliff as publisher.

AUGUST 2009

Becky Hatfield
Becky Hatfield, 57, of Orange, died Aug. 1, 2009, at Baptist Hospital in Beaumont.
Hatfield, an advertising inside sales representative for the Orange Leader, was employed by the newspaper for more than 20 years, first as a classified advertising clerk, later moving into retail advertising sales. 
She helped with walk-in customers and managed accounts including national retail stores.

Ella Gayle Wood
Ella Gayle Wood, 98, died Aug. 8, 2009. She was the widow of a newsman and former American-Statesman editor Sam Wood. She supported her husband’s career and in later years supported recipients of her late husband’s scholarship fund.
Born in Waco in 1910, she married Sam Wood in 1930, beginning a longtime dedication to journalism through her husband’s pursuits.
Sam Wood, who died in 1992 at age 84, was known as an old-fashioned newspaperman who staunchly supported his reporters and believed that the pen and paper trumped new technology in reporting. He was the editor of the American-Statesman from 1968 to 1976, when he retired.

Julian Stanley Nolen
Julian Stanley Nolen, 73, of McKinney, died Aug. 13, 2009, in a McKinney nursing home.
He graduated from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene with a bachelor’s degree and pursued a master’s degree at Texas Tech University and then-North Texas State University.
He was a sports reporter at newspapers in Amarillo and College Station. He also served as stints as editor of the Belton Journal and the Trinity Standard. He taught at public schools for 26 years. He also taught journalism and history at Lamesa High School from the early 1970s to 1988.

Billie Louise Norman
Billie Louise Norman, 86, of Brownwood, died Aug. 14, 2009. 
She was born Jan. 27, 1923, in Anson to Pascal and Ima Jay Ball. She graduated from Anson High School in 1940 and married Henry Louis Norman in 1942 in Abilene. 
She worked for the Lamesa Daily Reporter before moving to Brownfield in 1963. In 1970 the Normans bought the County Press newspaper where they worked until retiring in 1983.

Darla Visage
Darla Lee Herr Visage, 71, of Azle, died peacefully on Aug. 16, 2009, in her home surrounded by her children after a 10-month battle with cancer.
Darla was born June 18, 1938, in Inglewood, Calif., to Max Lape Herr and Dovie Pauline Herr. Upon graduation in 1956, she moved to Texas where she met and married Harold Duane Visage in 1957. They were married for 47 years and had four children and eight grandchildren. She was a homemaker and an advertising layout designer for more than 26 years for the Azle News and the Springtown Epigraph. 
The family requests donations be made to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, www.trocrf.org.

Elmer Kelton
Award-winning novelist Elmer Kelton, 83, of San Angelo, died Aug. 22, 2009. 
Kelton was born April 29, 1926, at Horse Camp in Andrews County to Mr. and Mrs. R.W. “Buck” Kelton, and grew up on the McElroy Ranch in Upton and Crane counties. He completed a bacheor’s degree in journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin after serving as a U.S. Army infantryman in Europe during World War II.
Kelton married Anna Lipp of Ebensee, Austria, in 1947 and began a career in agriculture journalism at the San Angelo Standard-Times in 1949. He became editor of the Sheep & Goat Raiser Magazine in 1963 and associate editor of Livestock Weekly in 1968, retiring in 1990. 
He maintained a parallel career as a freelance writer, beginning with short stories in the post-war pulp magazine trade, progressing to novels, non-fiction books and countless magazine articles. In all, he wrote more than 40 books, including “The Time it Never Rained,” “The Wolf and the Buffalo,” “The Day the Cowboys Quit” and “The Good Old Boys,” which became a Turner Network movie directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones. 
Kelton was named the number-one Western writer of all time by the Western Writers of America. The WWA voted him seven Spur awards for best Western novel of the year and the career Saddleman Award, and he received four Western Heritage Wrangler awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Johnny Powers
Johnny Powers, 67, of Houston, died Aug. 31, 2009, in a Houston hospital.
Powers was born Feb. 17, 1942, in Abilene, the son of Guy and Louis Watson Powers. He was a 1960 graduate of Valley Mills High School and a 1966 graduate of North Texas State University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. 
Throughout his career in journalism, Powers received many awards and accolades from a number of different news and journalism agencies, including the University of Missouri Davenport Fellowship. He traveled the world throughout Europe and Southeast Asia.
During his career, he was a reporter for the Texas City Daily Sun; public relations for Gulf States Utilities in Beaumont; Galveston bureau reporter for the Houston Business Journal; editor of the Dallas Business Journal; editor and vice president of the New Orleans City Business Journal; columnist for Fort Lauderdale News & Sun-Sentinel; business editor at the Beaumont Enterprise, later moved to the editorial desk to write editorials and columns, then was named Austin bureau chief to cover state government for four Hearst-owned newspapers during the Ann Richards administration. 
Later he moved to Montana as editor and publisher of the Big Horn County News, near the Custer battlefield and Crow Indian reservation. Afterward, he became assistant city editor at the Amarillo Globe-News and then copy editor at the Houston Chronicle. He retired from the Houston Chronicle in 2007.

Jo Ann Vachule
Jo Ann Vachule, 82, of Fort Worth, died Aug. 31, 2009.
Vachule was born Nov. 14, 1926, in Port Arthur. After graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur, she earned a degree in journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. There she met her future husband Jim Vachule when he interviewed for a job on The Daily Texan. She finished college in three years while working as a reporter for both the Daily Texan and the Austin American Statesman.Jo Ann and Jim married and went to work for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the early 1950s. 
Jo Ann served in various editorial capacities at the Star-Telegram and in 1963, she began a long run as the paper’s food editor. Under the alias of “Jacqueline Jones,” she penned the Star-Telegram’s culinary Q&A column, C.U.P.S (Cooking Up A Storm). Her writing garnered numerous prizes, including the prestigious Texas Headliners Award. She judged many cooking contests, including the Pillsbury Bake Off and formed an extended family with her fellow food editors with whom she traveled the world.

SEPTEMBER 2009

Bill Jewell
Bill Jewell, died Sept. 2, 2009, in Audie Murphy Veteran’s Administration Hospital in San Antonio.
He was a former sports editor of the Del Rio News Herald.

James Durwood Hayes
James Durwood Hayes, 92, died Sept. 23, 2009, at a nursing home in Gunter.
He was an award-winning photographer for the Dallas Times-Herald and later co-owner of a photography studio. Some of his work, along with photos by his father Denny and brother Johnny, comprise the Hayes Collection at the Dallas Public Library. Their pictures of celebrities, sports and news events, debutantes, city scenes and more “will now have to speak for themselves,” according to an article by Roy Appleton in Oct. 10 edition of The Dallas Morning News.
Born in Taylor County, Hayes grew up in West Texas and Dallas, graduating from Sunset High School in Oak Cliff in 1936. He attended North Texas State Teachers College, now the University of North Texas, in Denton, and worked with his father in the Times-Herald photography department before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943, He served as a photographer in the Pacific Theater.
Hayes returned to the Times-Herald after the war, joining his father and brother in news photography. He won awards for work in spot news, features and pictorial essays, such as the 1949 Dallas, a look at slums and skyscrapers. He served as president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Press Photographers Association. After their father’s death in 1953, the Hayes brothers opened a photography studio on Live Oak Street in Dallas.
Hayes established the weekly Richardson News in1958. After selling the newspaper, he started several printing companies before retiring in 1986.

OCTOBER 2009

Fidel Lara Garcia
Fidel Lara Garcia, 67, died Oct. 5, 2009.
Garcia, a U.S. Army veteran, started his 35-year newspaper career at the San Angelo Standard-Times. He went on to work for the Laredo Morning Times and later for the Del Rio News-Herald, where he served as news editor.
He was preceded in death by his son, Fidel Lara Garcia Jr., in 1990.

John L. Tveten
John L. Tveten, 74, died of cancer Oct. 5, 2009.
Tveten, a long-time columnist for the Houston Chronicle, also was an author, naturalist, photographer. He wrote about and photographed animals and wildflowers. He wrote many books and co-wrote five with his wife of 51 years, Gloria. 
His “Nature Trails” column ran in the Chronicle for nearly 25 years. The last of a three-volume anthology of those columns, “Nature at Your Doorstep,” was published by Texas A&M University Press last year. Originally a chemist, Tveten moved to Texas from Minnesota in 1960 after graduate school at the University of Illinois. He was a research organic chemist with Exxon before retiring in 1973 to become a full-time nature photographer and writer.
He also was a naturalist and tour leader for the Smithsonian Institution, National Audubon Society, Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Spring Branch Nature Center.

Jessica Hobby Catto
Jessica Hobby Catto, 72, died of colon cancer at her home in Woody Creek, Colo., on Oct. 7, 2009.
She was a conservationist, writer, magazine publisher and philanthropist.
Born in Houston, Catto was the daughter of Oveta Culp Hobby and former Gov. William P. Hobby. She was the sister of former Lt. Gov. William P. Hobby Jr.
Her family played a substantial role in Texas and American history in the 20th century, Edmund Tijerina reported in the obituary printed in the Oct. 7 editions of the San Antonio Express-News. 
Her mother headed the Woman’s Auxiliary Army Corps in World War II and later led the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Her father served as Texas Governor from 1917 until 1921. Her brother served as lieutenant governor from 1973 until 1991. Her family owned the now-closed Houston Post Co., and from 1980 to 1987, Catto owned the Washington Journalism Review, now the American Journalism Review. She most recently wrote for huffingtonpost.com on politics, conservation and the press. 

William G. “Bill” Boykin
William G. “Bill” Boykin, 83, died Oct. 14, 2009, in Austin.
Boykin served as general manager of the Texas Press Association from 1971-73.
He died from injuries suffered when he was struck by a car while crossing a six-lane street on foot. He was using a walker at the time of the accident.
A native of Shidler, Okla., Boykin served as a radioman in the U.S. Navy in World War II. After the war he graduated with a degree in journalism from Oklahoma A&M in Stillwater, which became Oklahoma State University.
After college, Boykin worked in broadcast news and in advertising sales for newspapers in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. He was employed by Oklahoma Press Association from 1955 to 1957. He later was employed by Allied Daily Newspaper Association in Seattle and then Florida Press Association, where he served as manager for 18 months before joining Texas Press Association in 1971. He left TPA in 1973 to accept a position as manager of Inland Daily Newspaper Association in Chicago. He was a longstanding member of the National Press Club.
Boykin and his wife, Betty had four children.

Wanda D. Walker
Wanda D. Walker, 88, died Oct. 21, 2009, at a Longview hospital after suffering a heart attack the day before.
She was born at Mineral Wells on Oct. 24, 1920. After graduating from Mineral Wells High School and Adams Business College she continued studies in journalism.
She became one of the first female editors of a daily newspaper in Mississippi when she was named news editor of the Commercial Dispatch in Columbus, Miss. She also was a correspondent for the Memphis (Tenn.) Commercial Appeal. 
She joined the Marshall News Messenger in 1961 and worked there for 20 years. While employed as a lifestyles and features editor of the Marshall News Messenger, she won many awards in statewide Associated Press competitions. She was especially known for her “Wanderin’ with Wanda” column. 
After retiring from the News Messenger, she and her husband, Jesse Walker, established Walker and Walker Advertising Agency. 
Jesse Walker, who was advertising director of the News Messenger for many years, died Jan. 13, 1995.

Ann Donaldson Atterberry
Ann Donaldson Atterberry, 72, died Oct. 23, 2009, of bladder cancer at a Dallas-area hospital.
The Jackson, Miss., native received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Louisiana State University in 1959 and worked for The Jackson Daily News for one year. She joined The Dallas Morning News in 1960 and worked for the newspaper as a reporter and editor for 35 years.
During lunch break on Nov. 22, 1963, Atterberry and three newsroom friends were eyewitnesses to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Jerry O’Bryant
Jerry O’Bryant, 70, died apparently of natural causes on Oct. 24, 2009, in Cortez, Colo., while on an elk-hunting trip.
The Fort Worth native was a long-time outdoors columnist for the Abilene Reporter-News. He always wrote about his annual elk-hunting trips to the Colorado mountains. His last column, which appeared in the Oct. 10 edition of the Reporter-News, spoke of the trip he was on at the time of his death.
He was a meteorologist with the National Weather Service for more than 40 years, retiring when the Abilene NWS office was closed.

NOVEMBER 2009

Bidal Aguero
Bidal Aguero, 60, of Lubbock, died in Lubbock on Nov. 3, 2009.
Aguero was founder and publisher of El Editor, the oldest Hispanic-owned newspaper in West Texas, established in 1977. He received many awards from the National Association of Hispanic Publications.
A lifelong resident of Lubbock, Aguero was a civil rights leader. He graduated from Texas Tech University in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in music. He earned as master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater in 1974.

John W. Mashek
John W. Mashek, 77, died of an apparent heart attack in Olney, Md., on Nov. 3, 2009.
He was born in Sioux Falls, S.D., and graduated from high school in Fargo, N.D. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in journalism in 1953. After college he served as an Army public information officer at Fort Hood.
Mashek started his journalism career at The Dallas Morning News in 1955, covering politics on the Dallas County courthouse beat. He moved to the newspaper’s Washington bureau in 1960. He became a high-profile political reporter, covering presidential and political campaigns and serving as a panelist on televised presidential and vice presidential debates. In 1961 he was one of three reporters selected to cover the re-entry of Alan B. Shepard, the first American in space, aboard the U.S.S. Champlain.

Bobby Jack Hickey Sr.
Bobby Jack Hickey Sr., 81, of Mineral Wells, died in Mineral Wells on Nov. 5, 2009.
Hickey, a Breckenridge native, was co-publisher of the Mineral Wells Index from 1958 to 1973. He was a graduate of Ranger High School and Ranger Junior College. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Mary Elizabeth Cook
Mary Elizabeth “Betty” Cook, 81, of Dallas, died of chronic pulmonary obstructive disease on Nov. 10, 2009, in a Dallas-area hospital.
Cook joined The Dallas Morning News in 1972 as a writer for the newspaper’s Southwest Scene Sunday magazine. She was named editor of the magazine about five years later. She later became a restaurant critic for the newspaper and retired in 1986. 
Born in Coleman, Texas, Cook was the daughter of a county extension agent. As a teen-ager, she was a radio continuity writer in Abilene, where she graduated from high school. She attended Hardin Simmons University and the University of Texas at Austin. 
She was considered a mainstay in Fort Worth community theater productions.

Tom Jacobs
Tom Jacobs, 50, died in a Houston hospital on Nov. 12, 2009.
Jacobs, editor of the Friendswood Journal and the Pearland Journal since 2004, suffered a massive stroke on Nov. 4 at the newspaper and was life-flighted to a Houston hospital, where he died.
Jim Molony, Houston Community Newspapers, reported that the night before Jacobs suffered the stroke, he worked late at his office and pushed back the deadlines on the Friendswood Journal because he wanted to get the election results published.

Joyce Young
Joyce Young, 80, died Nov. 15, 2009, in a San Antonio hospital.
She was the second of three generations of the same family to write the “New Berlin News” for the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise. New Berlin is the southernmost community in Guadalupe County.
Joyce (“Mrs. Harold Young”) succeeded her mother, Augusta Schultze in 1976 as community correspondent for New Berlin. And Joyce’s daughter, Dawn Young, succeeded her as the writer, taking over in April 2004.

Sandra Cason
Sandra Cason, 61, died of cancer Nov. 20, 2009. 
She was a reporter for The Marshall News Messenger and a journalist for 39 years. She started her career at the Nassau (Bahamas) Daily Tribune in 1970. She went on to work as a reporter and editor for the Longview News Journal, the Hallsville Herald and the Marshall News Messenger. She was an alumna of East Texas Baptist University. She won many journalism awards, including awards from Texas AP Managing Editors and Cox Newspapers.

Sarah Nell Feltman Parsons
Sarah Nell Feltman Parsons, 74, died of a massive stroke on Nov. 29, 2009.
She and her husband, Hank Feltman, founded the Springtown Epigraph in 1972.  They sold the newspaper to Roberts Publishing Group in 1976. 
“Sarah was born Jan. 20, 1934, to Bill and Nadine Fletcher. The oldest of seven children, she acquired the ability to take charge at an early age,” the Springtown Epigraph reported in the obituary published Dec. 2.
“At a time when a woman’s role was primarily domestic, she took college courses to self ensure her own future. She was a woman who truly lived her life. Whether as a swimsuit model for Vogue magazine or as editor of the newspaper she started in Springtown, Sarah was a force to be reckoned with.”

DECEMBER 2009

Gene Blessing
Shirley Gene Swart Blessing, 70, died Dec. 7, 2009, at home following a short battle with cancer. 
Born at Littlefield in 1939, she graduated from Littlefield High School in 1958. 
Two days after graduation she married John Edd “Jedd” Blessing. He preceded her in death in 2005. 
She attended Texas Tech University and was a commercial artist and mixed media artist. 
She worked in various areas of publishing, following a pattern that began at age 15 when she joined the annual staff at Littlefield High School. 
In 1980, she formed B&B Publishing Inc., which published four weekly newspapers, the Everman Times, Kennedale News, Forest Hill News and South County News, all in the Fort Worth area. The company added a printing plant that printed several other area publications.
She was honored with two resolutions from the Texas House of Representatives during her tenure as a publisher.

Bruce Bissonette
Bruce Earl Bissonette, 85, died Dec. 9, 2009, of congestive heart failure at Eden Assisted Living in El Paso. 
Bissonette was a police, fire, military and aviation reporter for the El Paso Times throughout the 1960s and wrote an award-winning column, “Prop Pitch,” until 1974. His media career in El Paso also included work as a television reporter, camera operator and news director. He was known as “Uncle Earl,” the co-host of a morning radio show.
He founded Skyway Products, a small custom manufacturing company that produced aviation supplies in the 1970s and dabbled in acting and photography. In 1972, he play a small role in the Steve McQueen movie, “The Getaway,” filmed partly in El Paso.

Margaret Bingham Galloway
Margaret Bingham Galloway, 93, died of natural causes Dec. 21, 2009. 
A longtime resident of Arlington and Grand Prairie, she was born Nov. 10, 1916, in Mayfield, Ky., the daughter of George Daniel Bingham, former publisher of the Mayfield Messenger, and Ellie Bingham.
She attended the University of Kentucky and upon graduation from Murray State University, began a long career in the newspaper business, starting at her hometown newspaper. 
A Texas resident for nearly six decades, Galloway worked many years as a woman’s editor at the Arlington Citizen Journal, and also was a writer/editor for The Dallas Morning News and the Grand Prairie Daily News. Other media accomplishments include being publisher of her own book “Ancestors and Appetites” in 1978, and the monthly magazine, The Arlington Woman.
She was preceded in death by her husband of 40 years, Parker Randolph Galloway, in 1982, and son, Greg, in 1997. Her son, Randy Galloway, is a sports columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Bob Green
James Robert “Bob” Green, 85, of Albany, died at his family ranch on Dec. 22, 2009. 
Green was born on the ranch and grew up in Shackelford County, attending schools in Albany and Breckenridge before enrolling in the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. 
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, he, along with many of his classmates, enlisted in the U.S. Army. He earned Silver Star and Bronze Star medals for battle action at Leyte and as a tank platoon leader at Okinawa. 
A rancher, gardener, writer and historian, Green wrote a weekly column for the Albany News and was a frequent contributor to the Abilene Reporter-News. He was the voice of Fandangle, the community-produced pioneer pageant at Fort Griffin, near Albany, every year in late June.

Joe Bean
Joe Patrick Bean, 51, of Austin, died Dec. 24, 2009, at University Medical Center Brackenridge in Austin.  
He was hospitalized Dec. 17 after suffering a severe head injury in a fall in the parking garage where he worked, and died eight days later following a massive heart attack.
Bean was a public affairs specialist for the Texas State Teachers Association and a regular exhibitor for TSTA in the annual Texas Press trade shows. 
He earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. He taught journalism for several years at Concordia University in Austin. His career included work as a book reviewer for the Victoria Advocate, as an editorial writer and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, and as opinion page editor for the Muskogee (Okla.) Daily Phoenix and Times-Democrat.

Elizabeth McClellan
Elizabeth “Betty” Josephine Mahood McClellan, 82, of Kerrville, died Dec. 25, 2009, in a Stamford care facility.
McClellan was born and grew up in Stamford and worked there as a stringer for the Abilene Reporter News, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Dallas Morning News. She attended Texas Tech University and the University of Texas at Austin. She earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Houston in 1974. 
In 1963 she and her husband, Alton F. McClellan Jr., moved to Austin and in 1969 the family moved to Houston, where she worked for Houston Public Library. The McClellans retired and moved to Kerrville in 1976.