Tag Archives: AGN Media

local news, media news

‘My Life in Print’ awaits

I pledged some time ago that I would keep you apprised of certain aspects of my private life as I continued on my retirement journey into old age.

With that I will make an admission: I have fallen short on one of my key goals, which was to complete the draft of my memoir by the first quarter of 2025. OK. I got that off my chest.

Now I will make another pledge. My intention is to finish that task by the end of this year. I need to parse the language just a bit. Notice I said it is my “intention.” I intend fully to complete this task.

For those who are unaware, I spent nearly 37 years covering communities in Texas and Oregon for newspapers. I worked for four of them, two in Oregon and two in Texas. I pursued my craft with great joy … until the end began creeping up on me. The end came on Aug. 30, 2012 when I learned I had fallen victim to the changing media environment. My boss at the Amarillo Globe-News informed me I would no longer do the job I thought I did pretty well for 18 years there. I resigned on the spot.

Then my bride said to me, “You know, you need to tell the story of your career. You’ve met some fantastic people and done some unbelievable things. Put it down and give it to our boys.” I agreed. I started work on it.

I had to compile the lengthy list of notable folks I encountered along the way. Some of them were great men and women; others were, well, not so great. I did some remarkable things along the way. I flew over an erupting volcano in early 1980; I returned to Vietnam in 1989, where I served for a time in the Army; I took part in an aircraft carrier tailhook landing and a catapult launch in 1993.

Only recently, I came up with a working title for my memoir. It’s called “My Life in Print.” It has a bit of a double entendre. It tells of my career using a print medium; and it tells the story of my modestly successful — and fully joyful — career in print journalism.

I got distracted along the way. I lost my bride to cancer 2 1/2 years ago. We had moved from Amarillo to the Dallas area six years ago. My effort to rebuild my life has taken more of my attention than I imagined. One of my two sisters recently passed away.

But … it’s not a downer. I have finished about 65% of the writing. I am pretty much done adding names of individuals to my already lengthy list. The end of this project is in sight. At least I think it is.

I also intend to publish it in some form. I want to bind the pages in a binder with an engraved cover. I also plan to dedicate to my bride, Kathy Anne, my immediate family and to the men and women I encountered along the way who have given me the grist to help me tell my story.

Moreover, when I’m done, you’ll be among the first to know.

local news, media news

Words of wisdom live on

AMARILLO — The late Gene Howe, one-time publisher of the Amarillo Globe-Times, coined a phrase that ought to become the credo for every media organization that is still standing.

It is engraved on the side of the newspaper building and it reads: A newspaper can be forgiven for lack of wisdom but never for lack of courage.

The newspaper no longer occupies the building you see with this post and they have torn down the sign denoting the company that operated there for decades.

I drove by a couple of times this weekend and I was filled with sadness at the emptiness of the space. Some windows have been broken and they have put plywood in the sills to keep the weather out.

The company that owns what is left of the newspaper moved the few remaining staffers out of there a few years ago. They work in a bank tower in the downtown district. I haven’t had the guts to darken the office’s door since they moved in. I don’t know what I would say. No one there would care that I once worked for the paper, running an opinion section that used to provide daily commentary on issues important to the community.

They do not have an opinon section any longer. Commentary? Leadership? Courage? Pffttt! It’s all gone, man!

A new dynamic now fills the void left by the virtual demise of the daily newspaper. The Internet is the medium of choice. Newspapers such as the one where I worked joyfully for nearly 18 years haven’t  yet figured out how to compete in this new age. Certainly not the parent company that once ran the Globe-News. The Morris Communication brain trust — and I use the term with caution — gave up the fight and sold the papers for a song to another company.

I don’t know what will become of the building that once symbolized a great media organization. I won’t lose any sleep over it. Still, seeing that engraved message on the side of a building where such words meant someting important does leave me wistful.

And, yes … quite sad.

local news, media news

I am the ‘newspaper guy’

AMARILLO — I attended the memorial service of a dear friend today, schmoozed with plenty of folks I once knew back in the old days and came away with a strange loss of identity.

You see, I once called this bustling city of 200,000 people my home, My wife and I lived here for 23 years, longer than in any community during our 51 years of married life together. Therefore, I was a bit puzzled by a seeming lack of recognition from some of those folks I once knew.

When I said the words “newspaper guy” or “Amarillo Globe-News,” I could see the light bulbs flicker on in their minds. “Oh, yeaaahhhh!” came the response. “I remember you now! Hey, welcome back home. Man, we sure could use you around here these days,” they would say … or words to that effect.

There you have it. I am identified by the job I performed for a newspaper that once was a significant presence in the lives of residents throughout the Texas Panhandle. It isn’t any longer. The Globe-News exists today mostly in the memories of those who subscribed to the morning Daily News, the evening Globe-Times or the Sunday News-Globe. Many of them read all three papers, given that they were produced by separate newsgathering and opinion page staffs.

Those days are long gone. Forever, too. The paper — if we can call it that — is merely a dimming shadow of its once-glorious self. The Globe-Times won the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service in 1961, print journalism’s top prize.

What does any of this have to do with me? Not much, truth be told. I wasn’t part of that glorious past. I was part of a past that meant more to people’s lives than the present does or that the future ever will. We weren’t a great newspaper when I joined it in 1995, but we were solid and we damn sure reported the news thoroughly throughout the region.

What I didn’t realize is how much the job I did for the community melded itself into my identity. I will not complain about it. I am just realizing it out loud for the first time.

It’s all very strange.

local news

City council races turn partisan?

I reported for work at the Amarillo Globe-News in January 1995, the same week that Mac Thornberry took office as the congressman from the 13th Congressional District.

I have teased Thornberry over the years that we “grew up together” taking on new roles in the sprawling environment known as the Texas Panhandle.

At no time during Thornberry’s tenure as the Republican member of Congress did he offer a public endorsement in the non-partisan races for Amarillo City Council. He stayed out of those tussles … publicly at least.

Thornberry’s no longer in office. His successor, the wacky doctor-turned-politician Ronny Jackson, has tossed his name into the brewing municipal kerfuffle by endorsing three candidates for City Council. Jackson did so two years ago as well, endorsing candidates for the council.

Why is this troubling? Well, for one thing Jackson has been an extremely vocal proponent of the policies put forth by Donald Trump. He has been an vehement critic of former President Joe Bden, contending that the 46th president conducted a “shadow presidency” while hiding what he said were “obvious” signs of mental decline.

Jackson is a MAGA Republican whose world view comports nicely with the far-right wing of his party, but which is at variance with the issues that decide municipal contests.

Jackson brings a fire-breathing partisan flare to a contest that should be decided solely on the basis of who is best qualified to set municipal tax rates, who has the best view of policing, fighting fires, providing water and other mundane — but vital — activities associated with running a city on the move.

Mac Thornberry, unlike his successor, always seemed to know his place. He served his constituents with decorum and class and understood he didn’t need to insert himself into a political battle that, to be blunt, he had no business taking part.

local news

This news hurts … seriously

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I am at the age of my life where I spend time looking at obituaries … just to see which of my friends and acquaintances have gone on to reap their great reward.

I did so again today — and got the shock of my life!

Inside the obituary page of the Amarillo Globe-News was news that a former marketing director for the newspaper had died at age 65. Her name was Jo Tyler Bagwell.

Jo was not famous outside of Amarillo — or Claude, where she grew up and attended high school. However, this woman was a force of nature. I first made her acquaintance when she worked in the marketing department of a local bank; I met her a day or two after I moved to Amarillo in January 1995 to start my job at the Globe-News. We hit it off immediately.

I want to pay a brief tribute to this woman because she was, to borrow a phrase, the “complete package.” She was physically attractive, but she also was a kind, generous, gregarious, charming, smart individual. She was a devoted Aggie.

Above and beyond all of that, she was a proud and devoted mother to her son, Blake, who many of us watched grow into a wonderful man.

I once told Jo that she was an angel put on Earth by God to care for Blake, who was born with myriad challenges, but who overcame them to blossom into the fine man he has become. He owes everything to his mother.

Many years have passed since I last spoke with Jo Bagwell. She struggled through the last stages of her life on Earth. I am saddened beyond every emotion I can summon at the news I saw today. At my age of 75 I am going to keep looking at obituaries to keep up with the rite of passage we all must face eventually.

Damn, I do not want to be surprised soon in the manner this news hit me like a punch in the gut.

local news, media news

Remembering final big move

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Thirty years ago this week, I piled most of my worldly possessions into a 1987 Honda Civic and set out for what would be the final stop on my fun-filled career in print journalism.

I had spent nearly 11 years pursuing my craft in Beaumont, Texas, but then an opportunity presented itself in a community far from the Gulf Coast … but still part of this vast state of ours.

I moved to Amarillo. People have asked me over the years when I moved to the Panhandle, and I have been able to tell them the precise date. I reported for work at the Amarillo Globe-News on Jan. 9, 1995. I departed Beaumont on Jan. 6; it took a while to drive from the swamp to the High Plains.

I made one overnight stop in Fort Worth to see some dear friends before trudging northwest along U.S. 287.

But I got to Amarillo. I would learn later of a quip I adopted and have used many times: It is so flat in the Panhandle that if you stand on your tiptoes, you can see the back of your own head. 

It helps, too, that the region is so barren that there’s little tall timber to block that view.

The point of this brief blog? It’s to highlight the flexibility and adaptability I didn’t realize I possessed when I decided to move from my native Oregon to Texas in 1984.

They used to run a tourism ad that called Texas a “whole other country.” How true it is. Beaumont not only is a lengthy mileage distance from the Panhandle, the Gulf Coast possesses a whole other culture. Whereas the Panhandle prides itself on its cowboy tradition, the Golden Triangle takes pride in its Cajun southern culture. Both places appeal to me greatly.

Life took another huge turn in March 2013 when my granddaughter came into this world. My bride and I set about preparing to move from the Panhandle to the Metroplex. It took a while, but we got here.

I guess I want simply to salute the journey my career enabled me to take. Kathy Anne and I saw much of this country and a good part of world on that trek. Texas gave us the opportunity to live a wonderful life.

We have been blessed beyond all measure. My journey continues.

local news, media news

Yes on ward politics!

This won’t surprise many readers of this blog, but there was a time when I wrote editorials for daily newspapers that I penned opinions with which I disagreed personally.

Hey, I was getting paid to speak for the newspaper and my voice wasn’t the only one to be heard. I had bosses and I answered to them!

You want an example? I once wrote editorials endorsing Amarillo’s at-large voting plan for its five-member city council. I disagreed with that notion, but I sucked it up and spoke for the Globe-News.

I left the paper in August 2012 and wrote on this blog that I actually endorse the idea of creating single-member districts for Amarillo’s five-member council.

Well, the city is putting a proposal on its ballot next month that expand the council by two seats, and the two seats will be elected at-large along with the rest of the council.

Amarillo’s population has grown past 200,000 residents. It is a diverse collection of residents, comprising a growing Latino base, an expanding Black base, more immigrants are moving in. Residents have a wide variety of interests, ethnicities, creeds and values.

Why not divide the council into, say, four ward seats, two at-large seats and the mayor? I’ve seen such a system work in other Texas cities. Beaumont, where I first lived in this state from 1984 to 1995, operates on a hybrid system. It works well.

Yes, a ward system can go too far. I visited Charleston, W. Va., this past summer and learned that the city of fewer than 50,000 residents is governed by a council comprising more than 20 members, all of whom represent wards. Talk about tiny constituencies!

Amarillo, though, remains wedded to a system that worked well when the community was much smaller and much more homogenous than it is today.

Truth be told, I still wonder how a city can govern when the entire governing body — including the mayor — answers to the same citywide constituency.

media news

Editorial endorsements … do they matter?

One of the aspects of a presidential election that I do not miss is having to go through the editorial endorsement process for the candidates who are lined up in spots along a lengthy ballot.

I went through that process seemingly every year for nearly four decades. We’d do it every even-numbered year for legislative and congressional races. We would do the same thing every four years when the time arrived for us to decide on whom to endorse for president.

I worked for editors and publishers who would shy away from the word “endorse.” They preferred to call it a “recommendation.” Yeah, I get it. Newspapers hardly ever are able to swing the tide of an audience that has its mind made up. So, I guess we did only offer our “recommendation” for readers to consider.

But we would go through the motions of considering which of the candidates were the better choice.

The 1980 presidential election presented us at our newspaper in Oregon with a dilemma. My staff and I weren’t nuts about President Carter or former California Gov. Ronald Reagan. So, I drafted an editorial recommending independent candidate John Anderson, the congressman from Illinois. I presented it to the publisher who, without even blinking, handed it back to me and said, “We’re going to back Reagan.”

The rest is history.

Newspaper editorials no longer have the clout they once enjoyed. Readers depend on newspapers’ guidance less today than ever.  They rely on myriad sources.

Then again, did we really have the impact we sought? Ohhhh … probably not.

education news

Take all the phones away!

All the recent news reporting about local school districts “cracking down” on cell phones in public schools has me nearly laughing out loud.

Call me a hardline, no-nonsense conservative fanatic on this issue … but I have believed since the advent of cell phones that those devices have no place in a public school classroom. Zero. None.

I long have been advocate for school districts confiscating cell phones from students when they enter the school building at the beginning of a school day. Take ’em away, lock ’em up in a secure place and tell the kids they can collect the devices when the final bell rings at the end of the day.

Several school districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area have been reported to be cracking down on the devices.

I wrote a column about this matter while working for the Amarillo Globe-News. The blowback I received from angry parents was a thing to behold. I didn’t get a lot of negative response, but much of what I received was nonsensical on its face.

One parent actually told me that her child needed to be available for instant communication and that depriving the student of a phone would put him or her in jeopardy. I reminded her of how parents used to get in touch with kids during a school day: They call the school, ask to speak to their little darlin’, the school secretary sent someone to the classroom and the student arrived at the office to take the call.

How long does that take? Five minutes?

Teachers have a difficult enough job as it is without having to cope with students sending text messages back and forth during lesson time. Students should be required to devote their undivided attention to the teacher. Yeah, I understand that such a requirement was impossible to achieve even prior to the advent of cell phones.

I am heartened to hear that districts report a decline in cyber bullying after the cell phone crackdown. How can that possibly be a bad thing?

local news, media news

Blogging gets new life

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I resigned from my final full-time journalism job on Aug. 31, 2012, having been informed by my publisher that I no longer would do what I had done for the Amarillo Globe-News for the past 18 years …. and I thought I was pretty good at it.

Silly me.

I would learn later that the publisher had me in his crosshairs when he announced that everyone’s job description had been changed. I fought for my job fiercely, telling the publisher ultimately that the industry I entered in 1976 bore no resemblance to what it had become by 2012. And that he was asking me to do things only a little different.

It didn’t work.

Immediately, I. began focusing my attention full time to High Plains Blogger, a platform I created a few years earlier.

I have mentioned many times on this blog how much I enjoy writing on it, offering my assorted views on this and/or that policy issue.

I have boasted from time to time that writing comes easily to me. I won’t brag about the quality of the prose I produce, just say that it does flow fairly easily off the tips of my fingers.

The subject matter helps determine the ease. I’ll be candid. Prior to President Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential campaign, it was becoming a bit problematic to find issues on which to comment.

Up stepped ‘vice President Kamala Harris. Biden endorsed the VP. She launched a full-frontal campaign from a virtual dead stop, raised a few tons of cash and injected this campaign with an energy level I haven’t seen since, oh, 2008 when Barack Obama took the nation by storm.

What does this mean for your friendly blogger? It means the proverbial chest where I store my ideas is full again.

I intend to remain engaged fully in this campaign. The blog is the only venue I have to offer commentary on the status of the effort.

So … I will weigh in. It feels good to be relevant.