Hall of Fame 2012
Arthur H. “Art” Kowert
Arthur H. “Art” Kowert, late editor and publisher of the Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post, began his career in the newspaper business with the Fredericksburg Standard in June 1934 after receiving a bachelor of business administration degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where he also was a member of the university’s first swim team and played trumpet in the Longhorn Band.
Early on at the Standard, he wrote sports, general news and worked in the advertising department, but when editor Robert Klett died in 1940, Kowert took over the paper’s leadership. It was a position that he would hold until January 1980 when he was named publisher and Terry Collier, who joined the newspaper in 1973, became editor. In 1984, the Fredericksburg Standard acquired The Radio Post, and the names of the two newspapers were combined.
During his 69 years in the newspaper business, Kowert served as president of the South Texas Press Association, 1944-45, and in 2000 received that organization’s prestigious Chester Evans Award.
Read more...Roy Robinson
Regarded as an innovator, mentor and problem-solver, Roy Robinson is often sought out by fellow Texas newspaper publishers for counsel and advice. He grew up in the back shop of his father’s Goodland Daily News in northwest Kansas, officially entering the newspaper business at 21 as city editor of The Lamar (Colo.) Tri-State Daily News. Since then he has worked through the many challenges the owner of a small rural newspaper can face.
An outstanding newspaper publisher who has distinguished himself in Texas, Colorado and beyond as a member of the National Newspaper Association, Roy Robinson served as president of Texas Press Association, Colorado Press Association, West Texas Press Association in 2004-05 and North & East Texas Press Association in 2007-08. He received WTPA’s prestigious Harold Hudson Award in 2006 and NETPA’s exemplary Sam C. Holloway Award in 2005 and Tom Mooney Memorial Award in 2006.
Read more...William Dean Singleton
William Dean Singleton is the founder and chairman of the board of MediaNews Group, the second-largest newspaper company by circulation in the United States.
“With more than 50 daily newspapers in 11 states and more than 90 published products, MediaNews Group engages a weekly print audience of over 18 million people,” according to Scarborough Research, MediaNews Group analysis of Audit Bureau of Circulation reports and internal records.
Singleton began his newspaper career at 15, serving as a part-time reporter in his hometown of Graham, Texas, and bought his first newspaper at 21.
He built MediaNews Group through the acquisition of newspapers, many on the verge of reorganization or closure. He pioneered the practice of clustering newspapers and centralizing such functions as advertising sales, business operations, production, and in some cases, editorial. He also adopted and developed pooled-asset partnerships with other media companies, such as Gannett and E.W. Scripps Co.
Read more...Carmage Walls
Carmage Walls, who died in 1998 at his home in Houston, was associated with Texas newspapers from the 1940s until his death. He touched the lives of thousands who lived in communities served by his newspapers and who benefited form his charitable interests. He nurtured the careers of some of Texas’ most outstanding newspaper leaders of the past 60 years.
Walls, the self-educated son of a Georgia sharecropper, became a nationally known newspaper entrepreneur and operator beginning in the 1930s. As a newspaper investor and manager, he was instrumental in charting new and exciting territory for newspapers, especially community newspapers.
Walls had high professional standards. He believed newspapers owed their readers and advertisers the very best newspaper each community could afford. He trained publishers to understand that each had a responsibility to give back in service to the communities they served. As a result, publishers working for Walls-owned newspapers have for generations been active in the Texas Press Association and Texas Daily Newspaper Association, and they have helped lead the lobbying and other public interest work for the two associations.
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