Sam ForeFloresville Chronicle JournalHall of Fame Class of 2013Sam Fore Jr. was elected 41st president of Texas Press Association in 1919 at the age of 28. He is believed to be the youngest person to hold the office. Fore owned and edited the Floresville Chronicle Journal, which he purchased in 1912, and also published the Robstown Record, which he bought from the Robstown Chamber of Commerce in 1926. His oldest daughter, Marion, and her husband, Carroll Keach, published the Record until their deaths in 1981 and 1983. Their son, Sam Fore Keach, and his wife, Vicki, continued to publish the Record, along with their son, Darrell Keach, until finally selling the paper in 2006 to American Consolidated Media Inc. and Jeremy Halbreich, a 2013 inductee in the TNF Hall of Fame. For 80 years and five generations, Sam Fore Jr. and his family published the award-winning South Texas newspaper. After Gov. James Ferguson won re-election in 1916, he vetoed appropriations for the University of Texas in retaliation against its refusal to dismiss certain faculty members Ferguson found objectionable. Many Texas newspapers railed against this and other actions, and in 1917, he was impeached by the Texas Legislature. In 1924, Ferguson’s wife, Miriam, was elected governor. She promptly vetoed appropriations for the University of Texas School of Journalism and the School of Music. Again, Texas newspaper editors were furious. The UT School of Journalism was established in 1914 by William D. Mayes, a TPA past president and former Texas lieutenant governor. When the journalism school was abolished, Mayes went back to his newspaper, the Brownwood Bulletin, and with the help of other editors and publishers, like Fore, made sure Miriam Ferguson was a one-term governor. Fore was a leading force in the campaign to restore the UT School of Journalism and effectively supported the election of Gov. Dan Moody, a champion of funding the journalism school. This was only one of many causes Fore led. In 1918, five years after he attended his first Texas Press Association convention, he was elected vice president of TPA. He became president a year later. In the 1920s, he helped form South Texas Press Association. He was actively involved in both groups for the rest of his life. Fore died at home in Floresville on Dec. 24, 1966.
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