Don Richards

Media law, including First Amendment issues, transparency in government
Richards, Elder & Gibson, PLLC

Hall of Fame Class of 2021

Don R. Richards is the senior named partner with the Lubbock law firm of Richards, Elder & Gibson, PLLC. An award-winning community journalist, Richards now practices primarily in the areas of public utility law, media law and administrative law. He is board certified in administrative law by the State Bar of Texas and serves as an adjunct professor at the Texas Tech University School of Law, where he teaches the administrative law course which includes the Texas Open Meetings Act and the Texas Public Information Act.

A sixth-generation Texan and fourth-generation journalist, Richards was born in Stonewall County and grew up in Jayton, where his father owned the weekly newspaper. He sacrificed his pound of flesh to the publishing world at the early age of 22 months, when he thrust a piece of wood into the iron cogwheel gears of a hand-fed printing press operated by his father, and lost most of four fingers. He was undeterred.

His father, Afton Richards, was a recipient of the TPA Golden Fifty Award in 1982 and his grandfather was president of the original South Plains Press Association in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Richards received his undergraduate degree in journalism from Texas Tech and served as editor of the student newspaper, The University Daily. He paid his way through college working the night shift as a linotype operator at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. He then spent several years in the newspaper business, first as editor of several West Texas community newspapers, then as publisher of The Azle News.

Newspapers he edited won 40 awards in a five-year period from 1974 through 1978 from the PPA, WTPA and TPA. In 1978 he won first place in the “Community Service Award” from the Texas Press Association, the Panhandle Press Association and the West Texas Press Association.

In 1978, then newly elected Lubbock Congressman Kent Hance named Richards as his press secretary and administrative aide on his Washington, D.C. staff where he also handled legislative matters involving communication, military and foreign affairs.

Richards returned to Texas in 1982 and, while continuing to work for Congressman Hance in the Lubbock office, he attended Texas Tech Law School, graduating cum laude in 27 months. While in law school he served as chairman of the Board of Barristers, as associate editor of the Law Review, and was selected to the law school’s National Moot Court team as its brief writer and won first place in the southwest regional law school competition held at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

His law practice includes media law, administrative law, and utility law. He represents a large number of rural telephone and electric utility clients, has served as a member and past chairman of the Public Utility Section of the State Bar of Texas, is the past general counsel to the National Telephone Cooperative Assn, and current general counsel to Texas Statewide Telephone Cooperative, Inc. He has also represented a large range of media clients across Texas including the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, the Texas Press Association, and several community newspapers across the state.

He also serves as an advisory director and as a hotline attorney for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. In 1991, FOIFT awarded him the James Madison Award for service to the public with free legal counsel and contributions to open meetings and the free flow of public information.

At various times he has served on the board of directors for the Panhandle Press Association, including as president; on the board of directors of the West Texas Press Association; and the board of the Texas Press Association. In 2017 Richards was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Texas Panhandle Press Association.

He also has been on the board of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas (FOIFT) which advocates openness and transparency in Texas government; and continues today to serve the FOIFT as one of the statewide hot-line attorneys who provide free legal counsel to the public and news media regarding the Texas Open Meetings laws and public information laws.

For a period during his law career, he and partners bought the Hale Center American for which he served as editor/publisher for several years. He currently is in his 34th year as publisher of “The Banner of Love,” one of Texas’ oldest religious newspapers, printed monthly in the interests of the Primitive Baptist Church.

Richards was married to the former Melba Herron for 29 years before her death in 2001. In 2018 he married the former Caryn Cheatham; and the couple together have five adult children. Richards remains very active in his church, as well as local, state, and national political and civic affairs.