TPA honors Kim Ware with Mayborn Award

Outgoing TPA President Ken Cooke presented the Frank W. Mayborn Award for Outstanding Community Leadership to Kim Ware, president of Hyde Media Group and publisher of the Tri-County Reporter in Azle.

COLLEGE STATION – Hyde Media Group President Kim Ware has been honored with the 2024 Frank W. Mayborn Award for Outstanding Community Leadership.

Awarded in honor of the late Frank W. Mayor, publisher of the Temple Telegram and community leader in the city of Temple and Bell County, the  award recognizes newspaper executives who have extensive service to the communities their newspapers serve.

In addition to leading Hyde Media Group, Ware serves as publisher of the Tri-County Reporter in Azle, created in 2023 with the merger of the Azle News and Springtown Epigraph.

Ware has long been an advocate for community newspapers, even before she joined the newspaper business in 1999, hired by former Azle News Publisher Bob Buckel as an ad sales representative. She succeeded Buckel as publisher when he retired in 2011.

Cooke noted some of the local activities Ware has been involved with in the past year: the Azle Area Ministerial Alliance Follow the Flag event, National Day of Prayer, Eagle Mountain Pregnancy Help Center, Main Street Mingle benefiting the future Hope and Healing Center, Azle Rotary Club scholarships to Azle High School seniors and Community Caring Center annual food drive.

Additionally, her Christmas on Main Street Bicycle Giveaway awarded more than 100 bicycles to children. More than 1,000 bicycles have been given away over the life of the program.

Ware has received the city’s highest honor, the Lew and Sandy Shaffer Award, and has been named Chamber of Commerce Member of the Year, Business Woman of the Year and Friend of the Chamber.

She currently serves as president of the North and East Texas Press Association. She has served on the Texas Press Association board and as a director of the West Texas Press Association.

With the recognition, the Mayborn Foundation awards a $3,000 scholarship to the college of the recipient’s choice. Ware chose Tarleton State University. The university will choose an outstanding journalism student to receive the scholarship in the next academic year.