Gatesville Messenger continues operations under new ownership

After about five years of providing the Gatesville community with weekly local news, the April 25 edition of The Gatesville Messenger marks the last newspaper parent company Hyde Media will produce before ownership transfers to the Copperas Cove Leader Press.

By ALLY HINKLE, ally@gatesvillemessenger.com

This transfer of ownership is the result of a fire that destroyed the Messenger’s physical building Monday, March 16, claiming the Messenger’s archives and equipment.

“It was very important for the Hyde Media Group to see that a newspaper in Gatesville survived the catastrophic fire,” Sam Houston, publisher of The Gatesville Messenger and Hood County News, said. “We are confident the new ownership will serve the Gatesville community well.”

Before the fire, Houston had overseen operations in Gatesville after Hyde Media purchased The Gatesville Messenger from Roberts Publishing in 2021. Since then, Hyde Media has been focusing on producing hyper-local news. Before Hyde Media purchased the newspaper, operations were overseen by the Roberts Publishing Company since around 1996, with Marshall Day serving as the publisher for 20 years before his wife, Debbie Day, took over as publisher in 2017 upon his passing.

“It has been a great privilege to serve as the publisher of one of the oldest newspapers in Texas,” Houston said. “The Messenger has a proud tradition of journalistic quality, and I am hopeful that the product which we produced over the past years reflected positively on that reputation. The people of Gatesville are a kind, generous and loving group, and it has been an honor to tell their stories.”

Moving forward, The Gatesville Messenger will be overseen by David Morris of the Copperas Cove Leader Press and David Tuma of The Belton Journal. This will create a sort of triangular-coverage effect, with the three papers effectively covering news in Gatesville and its surrounding areas, the Belton and Temple areas and Copperas Cove and its surrounding areas.

“When I heard of the fire that night, immediately my heart sank,” Morris said. “My mind raced with the thought of how is that community going to get its news? Do we from CCLP need to pick up the slack ... how do we prevent this from being an information black hole in our county?

“Immediately we started planning how to have a senior section printed, if The Messenger wasn’t going to print … we were just a few hours into that planning session when Tuma called and said there may be an option to bring the Messenger into our ownership,” Morris said. “Without a thought, my response was, ‘Let’s make it happen, and we will figure out the logistics.’”

Upon the switch in ownership, The Gatesville Messenger will be operating out of the Gatesville Primary School after Gatesville Superintendent Dr. Barrett Pollard offered office space to the organization immediately following the fire.

“Offering office space to the Gatesville Messenger was a no brainer,” Pollard said. “The Messenger has been a strong supporter of the school district for decades. In addition, the Messenger is an integral part of Gatesville as a whole.”

Morris expressed his appreciation.

“Dr. Pollard and his staff have been very accommodating and have truly allowed The Messenger a hand up from the ashes and are preparing us for continued success,” Morris said.

The Messenger staff will consist of returning reporters David Scott and Ally Hinkle, as well as returning route driver Larry Warren. The Messenger will also welcome back Kaitlyn Smith for advertising sales, as well as welcoming Josh Morris as the business office director.

The next steps for The Gatesville Messenger will be re-establishing its phone number and getting back into the field to report on events as normal.

“Hopefully [we will] not [be] skipping a beat and the community support will continue,” Morris said.

(This article was originally published in the April 25 edition of The Gatesville Messenger.)