The Society for Features Journalism has announced its 28th annual award winners. Among the winners are the five largest newspapers in Texas: the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Austin American-Statesman, San Antonio Express News, Houston Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News.

The SFJ Excellence-in-Features awards honor the craft of feature writing and the people who do it for a living at news organizations and wire services. Winners will be honored at SFJ’s national conference in Austin, Aug. 10-13. 

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has thrown out a gag order that prohibited bikers charged in a deadly May 2015 shootout from talking to the media. The court issued an order June 15 that lifted a stay that had been in place since August, when the court ruled that the gag order was wrong but allowed it to stay in place pending further consideration. 

The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas has been awarded a grant of $3,500 from the Texas Bar Foundation to produce a concise guidebook on state open government laws and the public’s right to know.

The “Guide to Texas Open Records and Open Meetings Laws” will be available in printed form at FOI Foundation of Texas events beginning later this year. It will also be published online.

William Miller

William “Billy” Milton Miller died June 9, 2016, at the age of 91. 

Kelli Barnes
Polk County Publishing
Kelli Barnes has been promoted to operations manager for Polk County Publishing Company overseeing eight publications.
Most recently Barnes was manager of the Tyler County Booster. 

Beth Faircloth
Tyler County Booster
Beth Faircloth has been promoted to office manager at the Tyler County Booster.
She will handle display advertising and does much of the graphics design work at the Booster. 

MONTGOMERY – Brett Voss was honored with the Fred Hartman Excellence in Sportswriting Award on June 18 at the TPA Newspaper Leadership Retreat. Voss, who is the publisher of The Clifton Record & Meridian Tribune, was presented with a plaque and $1,000 by the revered newspaperman’s grandson and namesake, Fred Hartman of Hartman Newspapers.

MONTGOMERY – Texas Press Association honored Dolph Tillotson with the Frank W. Mayborn Award for Community Leadership on June 17 during the Newspaper Leadership Retreat at La Torretta Lake Resort and Spa. 

MONTGOMERY – Glenn Rea, publisher of the Cuero Record, was honored with the Golden 50 Award for exemplary service and selfless contributions to journalism for 50 or more years at the TPA Newspaper Leadership Retreat at La Torretta Lake Resort and Spa. 

Rea, the outgoing president of the association and emcee of the July 17 luncheon, presented the award to himself in an excessively modest manner. On July 18, Jim Moser and Rea’s wife Carrie presented the award again during the awards brunch.

“We are going off script now, as Glenn would say,” said Moser.

Q: Our hospital district recently let a highly paid employee go. The employee got a sizable settlement and the local governmental body is refusing to release the terms. Aren’t local governmental bodies prohibited from entering into nondisclosure agreements?

A:  See the Texas Public Information Act, Government Code Sec. 552.022, titled Categories of Public Information, at: www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/GV/htm/GV.552.htm#552.022. 

EDITOR’S NOTE:  The following is reprinted with the permission of Newspaper Association of America president David Chavern, who addressed the issue during his speech to TPA’s leadership retreat in June.

Newspaper Association of America