2010 Texas Press obituaries

Deaths reported by the Texas Press Messenger in 2010.

JANUARY

Deborah Howell
1941-2010
Deborah Howell, 68, died Jan. 2, 2010, after being struck by a car while vacationing in New Zealand. 
Howell was the daughter of San Antonio newspaperman and broadcaster Henry Howell. She was born in San Antonio. In the early 1960s, Howell worked as an intern at the Austin American- Statesman. She graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin. She was a copy editor for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times before joining the Minneapolis (Minn.) Star as a reporter in 1965. 
She was city editor for four years, one of the few women to hold such a post in those days, and was promoted to managing editor. In 1979, she left the Star for the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press, where she advanced from assistant managing editor to managing editor in 1982 and executive editor in 1984. While there, she led the newsroom to win two Pulitzer Prizes. 
In 1990, she was hired as chief of the Newhouse News Service Washington bureau and her staff won a Pulitzer while she was there. She was named ombudsman for the Washington Post in 2005 and served until she retired in 2008.  

Bill Maddox
1938-2010
Bill R. Maddox, 71, of San Antonio, died Jan. 3, 2010, after a long battle with cancer. 
Maddox had worked for Public Strategies Inc. in Austin for 13 years before retiring in 2009. He attended Paris Junior College, majoring in journalism. In 1961, he started a 15-year newspaper career, starting as a reporter for daily newspapers in Irving, Tyler, Marshall and finally, Port Arthur, where he served as executive editor. 
He won many awards in Texas Press Association better newspaper contests and served on the TPA board of directors. 
He left the newspaper business and served nine years as press secretary for the Congressional Joint Economic Committee for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, having been appointed by then-U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas. 

Roy Scudday
1921-2010
Roy Sheppard Scudday, 88, of Fort Davis, died at his home in Fort Davis on Jan. 6, 2010. 
Scudday was a 1938 graduate of Newman High School, now Sweetwater High School, and attended the University of Texas at Austin where he received a bachelor of arts degree in journalism in 1942. That same year he joined the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant and did not return to the United States until 1945, having participated in seven major invasions in the Pacific against the Japanese. 
After the war, he worked for newspapers in Odessa, Victoria, Houston, and Wichita Falls. He served as editor of the Sweetwater Reporter from 1953-1957. 
He then worked in public relations in Fort Worth and Austin during which he was active in politics with the Texas Democratic Party, working on the campaigns of several Texas office holders and candidates in the 1960s and 1970s. He then worked for the General Land Office, after which he opened an appraisal firm, Roy Scudday and Associates, in Fort Davis. He operated the firm until 2008, during which period his wife Ann served as Jeff Davis county judge. Scudday was buried with full military honors at Sweetwater Cemetery. 

Larry Gage
1933-2010
Larry R. Gage, 76, died Jan. 7, 2010, at Garden Terrace nursing facility in Houston, after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. 
A graduate of then-East Texas State College in Commerce, Gage earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1955. While attending college, he worked at newspapers. He completed some of his course work by correspondence in order to work in the Austin office of U.S. Sen. Sam Rayburn. He served in the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1957 and earned as master’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in 1959, where he met his wife, Mary Angeline Smith, also a journalism student. 
He began his newspaper career at the Jacksoville Journal and later became state editor and editor for the Brownwood Bulletin, where he worked for 1959 to 1966. He joined the Houston Chronicle in 1966 and worked there for 34 years. He was a member of the Chronicle editorial board when he retired in 2000. 

John Newell
1918-2010
John Keith Newell, 91, died Jan. 18, 2010. A native of Arkansas and a graduate of the University of the Ozarks, the young Newell’s part-time job as a Linotype machine operator at a Clarksville, Ark., newspaper made a lasting impression. 
In World War II, Newell was in the Army, serving in Iwo Jima, Saipan and Guam. He met his wife in Memphis, Tenn., at a USO and proposed marriage in a letter containing a ring. She wrote back, “Yes.” 
Newell went on to work for the Arkansas Democrat, the Arkansas Gazette and The Associated Press, all in Little Rock. 
He joined the San Antonio Express in 1951 as telegraph editor. Before retiring in 1983, he had been science editor, news editor, assistant managing editor and managing editor of the evening paper. He loved writing headlines and won 13 AP headline-writing awards. 

Guillermo Morales
1962-2010
Guillermo M. “Memo” Morales, 47, died of natural causes in Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico, on Jan. 21, 2010. 
A news correspondent, news analyst and typographer, Morales contributed stories for more than 20 years to The Presidio International, in addition to working for Contacto de Ojinaga, El Heraldo de Chihuahua and other newspapers and radio stations. 

Mildred Neatherlin
1932-2010
Mildred Charlene Brazzil Neatherlin, 78, of Highlands, died Jan. 23, 2010, at St. James House in Baytown. 
In 1955, Neatherlin moved to Highlands with her husband Alton. The couple, along with Mildred’s brother James Brazzil, founded The Highlands Star, which later became The Highlands Star-Courier. She was co-owner and publisher of the newspaper for 37 years.

FEBRUARY

Bill Poole
1927-2010
William Robert “Bill” Poole, 82, died Feb. 20, 2010. 
A graduate of Greenville High School and a former student at the University of Texas at Austin, Poole began his journalism career as a sports reporter for the Greenville Morning Herald, a newspaper owned and operated by the Poole family. The newspaper was sold to Harte-Hanks in 1954. 
He was former owner of the Princeton Herald and the Farmersville Times, purchasing the Farmersville Times from Burton and Martha Fielder. He was joined by his brother Tom R. Poole Jr. and sister-in-law Josalyn Poole in the newspaper operation. 
The Pooles founded the Princeton Herald in 1972. Tom Poole died in 1990 and Bill Poole sold both newspapers to Chad Engbrock in 2002. 

Bill Thompson
1926-2010
Bill Thompson, 83, died Feb. 6, 2010. Thompson, born in Tustin, Calif., served in the U.S. Navy in World War II and worked for Boeing aircraft after the war before launching a 45-year career in the newspaper business. 
He started as an aviation editor for the El Paso Times in 1959 before moving to the El Paso Herald-Post. Among his many noted assignments, he covered the 1966 Texas Western Miners’ NCAA championship basketball season. 
Thompson also covered a variety of other assignments as a reporter and photographer. He continued writing for newspapers in East Texas until his seventies. 

MARCH

Albert Burns
1925-2010
Albert H. Burns, 85, of Tenaha, died March 10, 2010. 
He was a former owner and publisher of The East Texas Light, a weekly newspaper in Tenaha, Shelby County. He had owned and operated Burns Real Estate in Tenaha since 1947. He graduated from Tenaha High School in 1942. He served in World War II with the U.S. Army Air Corps 17th Bomb Group, 34th Squadron, in Europe. 

Liz Carpenter
1921-2010
Mary Elizabeth “Liz” Sutherland Carpenter, 89, of Austin, died of pneumonia in Austin, March 20, 2010.
 She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin, majoring in journalism, and served of the staff of The Daily Texan.
In 1942, she moved to Washington, D.C., covering Congress and the White House for the Austin American-
Statesman. In 1944, she and Les Carpenter married in Washington, D.C., and founded Carpenter News Service. She continued to report on national politics for the next 16 years. Carpenter was hired in 1960 as a spokeswoman and speech writer for then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. With the nation and world in shock following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, Carpenter wrote the famous 58-word address Johnson delivered after taking the oath of office as president: When Lady Bird Johnson became first lady, Carpenter became her staff director and press secretary, serving from 1963 until LBJ’s term of office expired in January 1969. Carpenter remained close to the Johnson family for the rest of her life. Carpenter was a social and political force. She made a place for herself at the forefront in the women’s rights movement and the Democratic party. Carpenter spoke at the 125th annual Texas Press Association summer convention on June 18, 2004, charming the audience with wit and humor.  

Bea Zeeck
1922-2010
Bea Zeeck, 88, died March 25, 2010, at her home in Lubbock after a brief illness. 
Zeeck, a journalist and former spokeswoman for Texas Tech University, received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and a master’s in communications from Texas Tech. She was a reporter for The Columbia Missourian, the Chico (Calif.) Daily Record and for International News Service in Chicago and Des Moines, Iowa. He also was a free-lancer for the Tulia Herald, Plainview Daily Herald, Lubbock Avalanche- Journal, Amarillo Globe-News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

APRIL 2010

Bruce Beck
1952-2010
Bruce Alan Michael Beck, 58, died April 22, 2010, at his home in Amarillo after a two-year battle with cancer.
Beck, employed by the Amarillo Globe-News for 29 years beginning in 1981, was a columnist and coordinator of the newspaper’s Our Town section. 
Born in Savannah, Ga., and raised in Commack, N.Y., Beck attended Dowling College in Oakdale, N.Y., but dropped out to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps. While stationed in Hawaii, he enrolled in the Columbia School of Broadcasting and the University of Hawaii. 
After completing his military service, Beck worked in radio, restaurants and a hotel before leaving Hawaii. Next, he helped build construction cranes in Minnesota for five years, attending the University of Minnesota and graduating from its School of Modern Photography.
He moved to Amarillo in 1978 and in 1981 joined the Globe-News. He started as a reporter, then moved into copy editing, and was promoted to assistant city editor in 1988. He later moved into feature writing, was named assistant features editor and coordinator of Our Town, where he began his column.

Dennis Hoover
1921-2010
Dennis Hoover, 89, died of complications of a stroke on April 21, 2010, at a hospice in Austin. 
Hoover was born in Lancaster, Pa. He attended Marshall College in Lancaster before serving in the U.S. Army in North Africa and Italy during World War II.
In 1946, he returned home and received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Southern Methodist University. There, he met his wife to be, fellow SMU senior Jeanne Patricia Ray, and they married in 1947.
Hoover started his journalism career at the Dallas Times Herald, where he worked until 1961, with the exception of a brief stint at The Denver Post. He worked as a general assignment reporter, editorial writer and columnist. 
He was associate editor of the Herald when he left to join The Dallas Morning News as a special writer reporting directly to the managing editor. He was an investigative reporter and became an editorial board writer before serving as editor of Scene, The News’ Sunday magazine, from 1969 to 1976. 
For the last 10 years of his career, he was editor of Line 1, the newspaper’s consumer advocacy and problem resolution column. He retired in 1986.

Lenora Carter
1941-2010
Lenora “Doll” Carter, 69, of Houston, died in her home of an apparent heart attack on April 10, 2010. 
Carter was a native of Corrigan. She graduated high school in McNary, Ariz., and attended Arizona State University, where she studied business management. Her newspaper career began as general manager and advertising director for the Houston Forward Times, an African-American weekly, Her husband Julius Carter founded the newspaper in 1960 and was publisher until his death in 1971. She succeeded him as publisher. 
The Carters’ daughter, Associate Publisher Karen Carter Richards, said her mother confounded observers who predicted she would fail. However, in Carter’s 39-year tenure, she shepherded the newspaper to a distribution of 65,000. 
As publisher, Carter received numerous honors, including the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s Publisher of the Year award, the NAACP’s Mickey Leland Humanitarian Award, the National Council of Negro Women Pacesetters Award andthe Ethel Ransom Art and Literary Outstanding Leadership Award.

Ellie Smith
1920-2010
Eleanor Marie Urban Smith, 90, died April 5, 2010, in Pfl ugerville. Born in Fedor, Smith graduated from Dime Box High School. She married O.G. Smith at Roswell, N.M., in 1940. In 1944 the couple purchased The O’Donnell Index-Press from Mr. and Mrs. August Hunter. In 1985, Ellie Smith sold the newspaper to Linda White Rodgers. 

Kenneth York
1931-2010
Kenneth York, 79, of Sulphur Springs, died April 2, 2010, at East Texas Medical Center in Tyler. The Red River County native graduated from Talco High School in 1948. He joined the U.S. Air Force and served from 1950 to 1954. After his discharge from the U.S. Air Force, he attended Cisco Junior College and worked for the Cisco Press. 
He later worked for the Electra Star-News and in 1966 joined the staff of the Abilene Reporter-News. He retired in 1992.

MAY 2010

Dorothy Vaughan
1929-2010
Dorothy Marie Vaughan, 79, died in Paris on May 13, 2010.
Vaughan grew up in Roxton and graduated from Paris High School in 1947. She began her career at The Paris News in 1951 as a teletype operator and worked at the newspaper for eight years before she and her husband, Charlie, moved to Dallas for several years. When they returned to Paris, she joined The Paris News as a full-time staff writer and reporter, covering entertainment, church news, society and women’s news. She also worked as a proofreader, obituary writer and feature writer. 
Vaughan began writing a feature column in 1989, appearing on the front page of the society section. She retired from the newspaper in 2002. 

Frank Adams
1930-2010
Frank D. Adams, 80, died May 13, 2010, in Dallas.
Born in Rotan, Adams graduated from high school in Pampa and joined the U.S. Navy. 
For more than 20 years, he worked in various production positions at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, then owned and operated two weekly newspapers, The Paducah Post and The Valley Tribune in Quitaque. He sold the newspapers in 1990. 
Adams and his wife, Patty, also owned Radio Shack franchises in Paducah and Ennis. The Adamses moved from Paducah to Dallas in December 2009.
Burial was in the National Veterans Administration Cemetery in Arlington, Texas.

Bo Byers
1920-2010
William Bowling “Bo” Byers, 90, died May 23, 2010.
Byers, a native of Miami, Mo., came to Austin when he was 6, having been sent here to live with his aunt and uncle after his father died of pneumonia. 
He graduated from The University of Texas and enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps, serving as a B-17 navigator in the 351st Bomb Group and flying 30 missions over Europe during World War II.
After the war, Byers went to work for The Associated Press and then the Houston Chronicle. As a reporter on President Kennedy’s press bus in Dallas, Byers heard the fatal shots that felled the president on Nov. 22, 1963 and filed frantic dispatches from pay phones. 
In Austin, Byers was a member of the Capitol press corps. He retired in 1983 after 10 years with the AP and 27 years with the Houston Chronicle. He returned to UT to earn a master’s degree in journalism at the age of 73. 

Constance Winter
1944-2010
Constance “Connie” Booker Winter, 66, died May 30, 2010, in Bowie.
Winter, publisher of the semiweekly Bowie News, was struck by a Toyota SUV while walking with her dogs in Bowie about 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 30. A justice of the peace pronounced her dead at the scene.
Winter took over as publisher of The Bowie News when her husband, James H. “Jim” Winter, died in September 2003.
In spring 2010, she married Paul Flores in Bowie.
She is survived by her husband, Paul Flores, Bowie; daughter, Courtney Reynolds, Houston; brother, Jack Booker and his wife Edith; sisters, Mary Lou Garrett and husband “Blackie,” Clara, Okla., and Prisella Riley, Dallas; stepsons, Norman Winter, Michael Winter, Lance Winter and Mathew Flores; stepdaughter, Susan Evans; three grandchildren, Whit Reynolds, Meagan Reynolds and Matt Reynolds; and one great grandchild, Makenzi Brooks Reynolds.
Winter was preceded in death by her parents; husband, James H. Winter; and brothers, Andy Booker and Pat McCall.

JUNE 2010

Warren Flowers
1923-2010
Warren Flowers, 87, died June 1 at a veterans nursing home in Bonham. Flowers was a former publisher of the Gainesville Daily Register. He started working for the Register as a paperboy in 1936. 

Eleanor Dozier
1924-2010
Eleanor Dozier, 86, died June 5 after a prolonged illness. Dozier was the widow of former Kerrville Daily Times owner and publisher William (Bill) Dozier, Jr. Dozier served as Secretary/Treasurer of Kerr Publications Inc., while her husband was president. She also worked at the newspaper for 15 years in various positions. She continued to work by her husband’s side as the company expanded over the years.  

Virgil Moore
1930-2010
Virgil Moore Jr., 80, died June 15 at the Woodlands Assisted Living Center in Eastland. Moore, a lifelong newspaper man, has worked for papers in Dallas, Del Rio, Edinburg, Eastland, Hereford and Bowie. Moore owned the Breckenridge American for nearly 26 years. He published the American until 1989, when he retired and sold the paper to his son.
Eunice McFall, 75, died June 23. McFall was a long-time newspaper editor at the Valley Tribune in Quitaque and helped found the Mesquite Country Trader newspaper. Funeral services were held June 26 at the First United Methodist Church in Quitaque. 

JULY 2010

Joe Brown
1931-2010
Joe Brown, 79, died July 4, 2010, after a brief illness. Brown began his journalism career as a linotype operator at the Lorenzo Tribune while still in high school. 
He became editor and publisher of the Tribune in the mid-1950s and continued in that capacity until he joined the editorial staff of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. At his retirement he was serving as the city editor of the evening edition.
Brown was born in Mineral Wells. He was a graduate of Lorenzo High School and attended Texas Tech University, where he later spent two years teaching journalism. 

Debra Scott
1962-2010
Debra Sue Specht, 48, of Vashti died July 24, 2010, from renal cancer. Specht wrote the syndicated column “Visiting in Vashti” that was published in the Clay County Leader, the Bowie News and The Shopper.  
Specht began by assisting Frieda Duke in writing “Visiting in Vashti.” She took responsibility for writing the column after Duke’s death. Specht also took part in the rewriting of the Vashti History Book, published in 2003. 
Specht was born in Dallas. She studied dance and theater at the Arts Magnet School at Booker T. Washington in Dallas. She later attended Junior College at Brookhaven in Farmers Branch. Specht received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in early childhood education at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Ga. 

L.D. “Jack” Jones Jr.
1923-2010
L.D. “Jack” Jones Jr., 87, died July 26, 2010, in Wichita Falls. 
From October 1987 to May 2003, Jones wrote the weekly “Museum News” column, chronicling the history of Baylor County, for The Baylor County Banner. He started writing the column after his sister-in-law, Patsy Jones Hall, who had been writing the column, fell ill and eventually passed away. Jones has written approximately 810 “Museum News” articles since he took over the column. The Baylor County Banner will continue to re-run his articles for readers to enjoy.  

Van Hilburn Jr., 46, died July 28, 2010, at the Medical City Hospital in Paris where he had undergone several spinal surgeries starting in early July. Hilburn was a longtime sports editor for The Paris News.
Hilburn was the valedictorian of his graduating class in 1982 at West Lamar High School in Petty. In 1985, he graduated summa cum laude from Wiley College in Marshall. The journalist worked at the Marshall News Messenger before joining The Paris News staff in 1993.

AUGUST

Joe R. Calvit
1924-2010
Joe R. Calvit, 86, died Aug. 10, 2010, in Wichita Falls. 
Calvit was editor and executive editor of the Longview Daily News and Longview Morning Journal editor from 1974 until his retirement in 1986, a period when there were morning and afternoon editions of the Longview newspapers.  

William Kent Coulter
1939-2010
William Kent Coulter, 71, was found unconscious in his backyard swimming pool on the afternoon of Aug. 20, 2010. He died later that night. 
Coulter was a veteran newsman for the Houston Chronicle who reported on everything from local crime to NASA space missions. He began his career in 1965 at the Houston Post, where he started covering the police beat and later moved on to cover several major topics, including courts, local government, space, transportation, education and politics. In 1986, Coulter joined the Houston Chronicle to work as a general assignment reporter. Coulter was named to the Houston Chronicle’s editorial board in 1991. He continued his career on the editorial board until retiring in the early 2000s. 
Coulter was a third-generation Texas. He was born in Jacksonville. He attended Sul Ross University in Alpine and the University of Houston. He also served in the Air Force Reserve from 1961 to 1967.

Norman F. White
1921-2010
Norman F. White, 89, died Aug. 20, 2010. 
White was a former city editor at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. He worked for the Caller-Times for more than two decades, beginning in 1963. In that time he covered Hurricane Celia and helped expose corruption of the Parr political machine in Duval County. He also flew for the Army Air Corps in the Philippines during World War II and later for the Manhattan Project in Roswell, N.M. 

Robert Hankins
1962-2010
Robert Hankins, 48, died Aug. 21, 2010, in Lake Charles, La. 
Hankins was a longtime newspaper journalist and former Beaumont Enterprise reporter. He also wrote and edited news articles for The Orange Leader and Orange County News, which was owned by The Enterprise. Most recently, he worked as a reporter for the County Record in Bridge City, La.

Ann Adams Melvin
1939-2010
Ann Adams Melvin, 71, died Aug. 26, 2010, in Dallas from complications after a six-year battle with breast cancer. 
Melvin was a former columnist for The Dallas Morning News who wrote essays on education, politics and Texas life. Melvin joined The News’ city desk in the early 1960s as one of the first female Metro reporters. 
On Nov. 22, 1963, she famously interviewed Judge Sarah T. Hughes just a short while after Judge Hughes had administered the presidential oath of office to Lyndon B. Johnson at Dallas Love Field. 
Melvin later became a well-known editorial writer and columnist. She continued to write columns as a special contributor after her retirement in the mid-1990s. 
At the time of her death, she was working on a novel based on her years growing up on the Navasota River in Bryan, her birthplace. 

Jayne Brumley Ikard
1927-2010
Jayne Brumley Ikard, 83, died Aug. 27, 2010, of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 
Ikard was a political journalist who served as one of Newsweek magazine’s first female bureau chiefs and went on to become a prominent Washington hostess after her marriage to U.S. Rep. Frank Ikard of Texas, The Dallas Morning News reported. 
Ikard was born Mary Jane Keegan in Boston and grew up in Walpole, Mass. She graduated from Boston University, where she studied journalism. Ikard then headed West and started working for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, where she met fellow journalist Calvin Brumley. They were married from 1951 until his death in 1972. 
The couple followed Calvin Brumley’s career to Denver, New York, Jacksonville, Fla., and Boston. 
In 1964, Ikard became head of the Boston bureau of Newsweek. She worked for Newsweek until 1969, when she was appointed director of public relations for the President’s Council on Environmental Quality.

Ann Pope
1932-2010
Ann Pope, 78, died Aug. 30, 2010. Pope was a former publisher and owner of The Bowie County Citizens Tribune/DeKalb News. The Pope family owned the papers from 1974 to 1998, when they were sold to East Texas Community Newspapers under Publisher J. Tom Graham. Pope also was an administrative secretary for the DeKalb Independent School District for 39 years. She was a native of the DeKalb community and a graduate of DeKalb High School. 

SEPTEMBER

Hollis Price
1930-2010
Hollis Price, 80, died Sept. 1, 2010, of a heart attack. 
Price was a longtime Houston Chronicle employee, who started his career as a delivery boy and ended it as vice president for circulation. Price was a native of Springfield. 
He received his master’s degree in business administration from the University of Houston. As a student, he worked at the Chronicle as night complaints manager. After graduation, he became an independent distributor. 
In 1985, Price became the newspaper’s circulation director. He was named vice president for circulation in 1997 and retired the following year. 

Fredalene Clark Ruggles
1921-2010
Fredalene Clark Ruggles, 89, of Katy, formerly of Gladewater, died Sept. 17, 2010. 
Ruggles worked at The Gladewater Mirror, then a family-owned business, from 1954 to 1985, serving as editor and after her mother (former publisher Mary Kates) died, as publisher. She spent countless hours reporting civic news for The Gladewater Mirror, as well as devoting her own personal time to the betterment of the community. Ruggles was born in Claremore, Okla.
She got her first taste of newspaper work when she undertook her own paper route at the age of 10. She married Neal Clark in 1938. They were married until his death in 1970. At the age of 80, she married Don Ruggles, a lifelong friend from Claremore. Don died four years later.

Lillian “Lorena” Long Miller
1941-2010
Lillian “Lorena” Long Miller, 69, died Sept. 18, 2010, in Round Rock. 
Miller was the society editor at The Canyon News from 1963 to 1993. She and her husband, Carl Ray Miller, lived in Canyon from 1960 until the early 2000s. A native of Muleshoe, Miller was valedictorian of her 1959 senior class at Three Way High School. She went on to study journalism at West Texas State University, now West Texas A&M University. 

George Breazeale
1930-2010
George Breazeale, longtime sports writer for the Austin American-Statesman, died Sept. 25, 2010, at age 80. 
Breazeale began working at the Statesman in 1950. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1951-53, he returned to the paper and covered high school and collegiate sports over the next three decades.
Breazeale retired in 1995. He was inducted into the Texas High School Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.

OCTOBER

Helen Combs
1913-2010
Helen Combs, 97, of Memphis died Oct. 1, 2010. 
Combs was a society editor for the Memphis Democrat, which she and her husband, Herschel, owned and operated for many years. She was born in 1913 and graduated from Wellington High School in 1930. She married her husband, who preceded her in death, in 1931 in Wellington. They moved to Memphis in 1944. Combs was a member of the 1913 study club, Memphis Little Theater and played bridge with many different clubs in town. She is survived by her two sons who both live in Memphis.

Richard “Dick” Gibbs
1930-2010
Richard “Dick” Gibbs, 80, died Oct. 1, 2010, in Fairfield following a lifetime of sports reporting for northeast Texas, the Corsicana Daily Sun reported. He was a sports editor for the Daily Sun for 19 years.
Gibbs went into journalism following the Air Force, where he worked as a control operator. That experience triggered him to become a radio announcer, his wife, Claudine, told the Daily Sun. 
Gibbs moved to Texas in 1962 to work at KBUD in Athens. While there, he met his wife and they married in February 1963. 
He went on to work for the Athens Review, then the Corsicana Daily Sun, where he spent nearly two decades covering local, state and even national sports through stories and his column “Gibbs Gabs.”
While Gibbs worked at the Daily Sun in the 1970s and 1980s, the newspaper was owned by the Harte-Hanks chain. Gibbs held a variety of jobs during that time including sports editor, advertising salesman and news editor. It was under his direction that the Daily Sun began producing annual football tabloids, expanded its sports department, developed a correspondent base, and created the Golden Circle coverage area. Using sports as one of its primary sale features, the newspaper became a seven-day operation and flourished with a weekend circulation that approached 11,000 readers in 1986.
Gibbs also started the Corsicana Daily Sun Junior Amateur Golf Tournaments that attracted hundreds of prospective golfers statewide to Corsicana. The long-time member of The Texas Sports Writers Association (TSWA) covered Navarro College athletics and also served as Region XIV’s conference basketball statistician for several years. He also served a stint behind the microphone on KAND’s sports broadcasts.
Following his retirement, Gibbs wrote part-time for the Fairfield Recorder. He kept that job for the last five or six years. He also produced the Richland Chambers Progress for five years.
Gibbs died three weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. 

John Paul Jones
1922-2010
Former Kilgore civic leader and longtime Kilgore News Herald employee John Paul Jones died Oct. 6, 2010. He was 88.
Known to many as “J.P.,” Jones retired from the News Herald in December of 1987 after 41 years as both general and business manager. He and his wife Peggy moved to Kilgore in December 1945. Both were well-known in the community before moving to Houston in 2000. 
Jones, served as a Navy officer on a destroyer escort in World War II. He received six campaign medals and was buried with military honors. He was preceded in death by his wife Peggy in May of 2008. He died on Oct. 6, early on the morning of their 67th wedding anniversary. 
As KNH chief financial officer, Jones was well-known throughout the East Texas newspaper industry. In the early 1950s, he supervised the purchase and remodeling of the current KNH location. The newspaper never missed a deadline during the move of the press and composing room production equipment. He also coordinated the 1972 transition from hot-metal letterpress to offset printing, early in the introduction of the new process. Behind the scenes, he also secured other jobs for employees put out of work by the transition. He implemented an employee benefits program as well, including medical, long-term disability and retirement, when the newspaper was still owned by founder and publisher Charles K. Devall, before it was sold to Donrey Corporation. 
Jones attended Baylor University and earned a business degree from Southern Methodist University. He was sent by the Navy for graduate studies at the Harvard School of Business. He went on to serve as the finance officer aboard the U.S.S. O’Reilly in the Atlantic, Pacific, Middle East and African theaters.

Phillip J. Record
1929-2010
Phillip J. Record, 81, died Oct. 31, 2010. 
Record was a retired newspaperman and professor at Texas Christian University. A native of Fort Worth, he worked in the newspaper industry for over 50 years, spending most of those years at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 
He first went to work for the newspaper in 1944 as a copy boy. He retired as ombudsman for the newspaper in 1997, but continued as a consultant and columnist for four years. 
Record started teaching journalism ethics at the Texas Christian University Schieffer School of Journalism in 1999. 
After graduating from the University of Notre Dame in 1950, he served in the U.S. Army for two years and worked as a reporter at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal for two years before returning to the Star-Telegram in 1954. 
Record has held many positions at the Star-Telegram, from reporter to associate executive editor. He was a former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists and the recipient of the Wells Key, the highest honor a member of the Society can receive. Record received numerous awards and honors throughout his career.  

DECEMBER

William H. Williams
1929-2010
William H. “Bill” Williams, 79, died Dec. 5, 2010, in Kerrville. Williams had served as a Kerr County commissioner since January 1999 and was set to begin his fourth term this month, the Hill Country Community Journal reported. 
Born in Birmingham, Ala., Williams moved with his parents to Minnesota and Indiana before attending high school at the Gulf Coast Military Academy in Mississippi. After graduation, he moved to Waco and resided there for 24 years.
Before serving as commissioner, Williams had a long career in the publishing world. He met his wife, Lew, while working as a composing room foreman at the Waco Tribune-Herald. She was the night news editor.
He then joined the staff of the International Typographical Union and edited its newspaper in Colorado Springs, Colo. 
He later became labor relations director for the Daily Racing Form in New York. He moved up the ranks to become publisher of DRF before retiring in the late 1990s. 
He moved to Kerrville and purchased The Mountain Sun in 1993. He and his wife published the paper for three years. 
Williams’ interest in politics started in Freehold Township, N.J., while he and his wife were working for DRF. He was elected Freehold Township committeeman three times and also served as mayor for three terms. After selling The Mountain Sun, Williams was elected  Kerr County commissioner for Precinct 2.

Jack Wettengel 
1922-2010
Jack Dean Wettengel, 88, former owner and publisher of The Clay County Leader, died Dec. 16, 2010, in Edmond, Okla. 
Wettengel was born Nov. 7, 1922, in Enid, Okla. He grew up in Covington and Rush Springs, Okla., where he graduated from high school in 1940. 
He attended the University of Oklahoma in Norman until he was called for military duty. He graduated from the U.S. Army Field Artillery School on Aug. 5, 1944, and was stationed at Ft. Sill and Ft. Knox before going overseas to Japan to fight in World War II. 
After the war, Wettengel returned to the University of Oklahoma and received his bachlor’s degree in journalism in 1948.
Coming from two generations of newspaper publishers, Wettengel grew up in the back shop of the Covington, Okla., newspaper and The Rush Springs (Okla.) Gazette. 
In 1950, he became the owner and publisher of of The Clay County Leader in Henrietta. In 1961, he sold The Leader and took over as managing editor of The Duncan Banner in Oklahoma, until he was asked to serve as Oklahoma Assistant Secretary of State under former Oklahoma Secretary of State Jim Bullard.
After his term of office ended in 1967, Wettengel worked for the Oklahoma Association of Electric Cooperatives, but was soon asked to join the Oklahoma Historical Society, where he headed the newspaper archives until he was named executive director. He worked at the historical society until his retirement in 1986.
Wettengel married his high school classmate, LeDelle Lee Gossett, in 1944 in Rush Springs. She became his true partner in life and in their newspaper endeavors and survives him. 

Mary Ann Sarchet 
1935-2010
Mary Ann Sarchet, 75, of Silverton, died Dec. 17, 2010, in Lubbock.
Sarchet was editor and publisher of the Briscoe County News for 51 years. She was recognized for this service by the Texas Press Association following her retirement earlier this year. 
Sarchet was also an EMT volunteer for the Silverton Ambulance service, as well as serving as the Worthy Matron of the Silverton Eastern Star Association.
She was born May 19, 1935, in Clarendon to Gladys and J. Miller Hill. She graduated from Tulia High School in 1953, and received a degree from Draughns Business College in Amarillo in 1955.
Sarchet married Charles Sarchet on June 24, 1955, in Tulia. They moved to Silverton in April of 1959 and have resided there ever since.
Survivors include her husband, Charles Sarchet of Silverton; a son, Ken Sarchet and wife Sandy of Converse; two grandsons, Brandon Sarchet and wife Meredith of Andrews and Jordan Sarchet and wife Amanda of Houston; one granddaughter, Molly Hindes and husband Cory of San Antonio; two great-grandchildren; a brother, Jim Hill and wife Emily of Tulia; and two nephews, Brian Hill and wife Felicia of Nazareth and Brad Hill and wife Theresa of Tulia.

Lee Meade Sr.
1928-2010
Lee L. Meade Sr., 82, of Chaska, Minn., and formerly of Horseshoe Bay, died Dec. 29, 2010. 
In addition to his long career as a writer and editor, Meade was a former freelance sports reporter for The River Cities Tribune in Marble Falls, wrote a genealogy column for The Tribune’s sister paper, The Picayune, and penned stories for other area publications.
He was an eternal optimist who sought and embraced change during his life. He began his sportswriting career with his hometown weekly newspaper, The Litchfield Independent-Review. He was an award-winning editor of a military publication during the Korean War. After the war, he returned to sports reporting and eventually became sports editor of the Denver Post in 1966.
While working for the Denver Post, Meade reported on the Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria, and the World Figure Skating Championships at Dortmund, West Germany.
He joined Commissioner George Mikan’s administrative staff of the newly formed American Basketball Association, where he implemented his idea of the red, white and blue basketball. He also developed the first computerized program for keeping statistics, breaking down rebounds, assists, turnovers and blocked shots, and a box score that became the model of today’s sports sections.
After retiring, Meade and his wife, Helen, moved to Horseshoe Bay where he continued to promote local high school sports as a freelance sportswriter in Highland Lakes and for the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools.