AUSTIN - Two Texas news organizations have won the Spirit of FOI Award for reports exposing the secrecy behind Austin’s city manager selection process and the peculiar lack of information following the resignation of the Bryan Independent School District superintendent. 

EDINBURG – Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, who sponsored one of the few open government and public information proposals that became law in the 2017 Texas Legislative session, has been honored as a “Champion of Transparency” by the Texas Press Association.

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.

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.