Recent staff changes, additions announced at Texas newspapers.

AUSTIN – First Amendment attorney Joel White, a former president of the Freedom Information Foundation of Texas and longtime champion of open government, died July 21 in Cartagena, Colombia, after becoming ill while on a trip. 

Veteran elementary school teacher Evelyn Carleton Singer, 82, of Austin, died Aug. 28 after a long battle with cancer.
She was the wife of longtime University of Texas journalism professor Griff Singer.
In a career that spanned more than three decades, she had an impact on the lives of thousands of young people, their parents and colleagues. Most of her work was in the Austin Independent School District at Walnut Creek and Highland Park elementary schools. She began her teaching career in Blanco and also taught in Lone Star and Buffalo in East Texas.

Ed Todd
MIDLAND – Retired Midland Reporter-Telegram writer James Edwin “Ed” Todd, 80, died Aug. 30 at his home in Midland. 
Todd attended Midwestern University in Wichita Falls and earned a master’s degree from East Texas State College in Commerce. He served in the U.S. Army in the mid-late 1950s, stationed in France as a radio technician. 

AUSTIN – First Amendment attorney Laura Lee Prather, a champion of free speech and government transparency, is the recipient of the 2018 James Madison Award presented by the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
The award honors those who demonstrate outstanding commitment to upholding the principles of the First Amendment and open government. 
Prather will receive the award Sept. 21 at the John Henry Faulk Awards Luncheon during the foundation’s Bernard and Audre Rapoport State Conference in Austin.

Recent staff changes, additions announced at Texas newspapers.

Cindye Ginsel, a veteran in marketing and publication design, is the new publisher of the Elgin Courier.
The appointment was announced by Granite Publications Sales Director Jim Beaver, who had been serving as interim publisher. 

Lew Allen Vail
ONALASKA – Polk County Enterprise writer Lew Allen Vail, 80, of Onalaska died Aug. 5.
Following a 30-year career as a comptroller with Vivarium Baylor College of Medicine and Intersect. Inc. in Houston, he took disability retirement in 1994 and began a public service career in Onalaska, where he served on many boards and civic groups, including Lions Club, the Chamber of Commerce, library board, volunteer fire department, school board, the county appraisal district and city government, as both an elected council member and as mayor.

Robert Lynn Ludwig
CORSICANA – Robert Lynn Ludwig, former managing editor of the Corsicana Daily Sun, died Aug. 3. He was 56.
Originally from the Houston and Pasadena area, he attended San Jacinto College and graduated from the University of Houston in Clear Lake.
He worked for several newspapers, including the Pasadena Citizen and Brazosport Facts, before becoming managing editor of the Corsicana Daily Sun in 1995.

Robert A. (Bob) Eierdam
WASHINGTON – Robert A. (Bob) Eierdam died Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018 at a Fort Worth hospice. He was 94.
He was born Nov. 4, 1923, in Spokane, Washington, to Al Eierdam and Frances Murawski Eierdam. Eirdam served with the U.S. Army in the Pacific Theater in World War II. After the war, he moved to Fort Worth, where he graduated from Texas Christian University in 1949 with a degree in journal-ism.