Clyde awarded NETPA Sam Holloway Award

From the Tyler Morning Telegraph
Former Tyler Morning Telegraph Publisher Nelson Clyde accepted the Sam C. Holloway Award when the North and East Texas Press Association met in Tyler for the group’s 93rd annual convention.
The award recognizes a NETPA member and journalist who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in support of the association while also upholding high standards of journalistic integrity and service to the community.
“I have been out of the newspaper business for a little more than 90 days and it feels like an eternity,” Clyde told the association. He continues to live in Tyler and works in the oil and gas industry. 
“I remember when people would leave our business, I really wanted them to come back and see us, but there’s something about the newspaper business — you’re either all in or you’re all out, and there’s no in between,” he said.
Clyde, 54, was the fifth generation of the family to serve as publisher of the Tyler Morning Telegraph under the umbrella T.B. Butler Publishing Co. 
He took the reins in 2007 when his father died and left Nov. 30 when the company’s publishing assets were sold to M. Roberts Media.
T.B. Butler Publishing Co. was named for former Smith County Judge and District Judge Thomas B. Butler. After the death of Butler’s only son, newspaper management was passed down through the Bothwell and Clyde families.
The family’s ownership lasted 108 years. Over that time the paper covered two world wars, 19 U.S. presidents, the state’s transition from Democratic to Republican control, the creation of Tyler Junior College, and the expansion of the University of Texas at Tyler.
“I cut my teeth in the newspaper business about 15 years ago and started at the Tyler Morning Telegraph as an account executive,” said Jake Mienk, the publisher of the Palestine Herald-Press and other community newspapers.
He called the Tyler newspaper “wonderful, innovative, known nationally for its innovation in the newspaper business” and credited Clyde with being the reason he is in the newspaper business.
M. Roberts Media, the new owner of the Tyler Morning Telegraph, is a family-owned company that began as owners of the Victoria Advocate, an award-winning newspaper in South Texas.
M. Roberts Media has expanded over the years to include additional East Texas papers such as the Longview News-Journal, Marshall News-Messenger, Panola Watchman and Kilgore News Herald. The company prints the Tyler Morning Telegraph in Longview and maintains staff at 410 W. Erwin St. in Tyler.
The Holloway award has been given by the North and East Texas Press Association since 1958, when it was presented to its namesake Sam Holloway, also at a convention in Tyler. Holloway was one of the founding members of the NETPA in 1926 and served as its second president in 1927.