It’s a daunting yet interesting task to write a longform feature about a magazine where the writer of said feature also works.
However, if there’s one subject an industry professional loves to tackle, it’s their own industry. Hollywood loves to make movies about Hollywood. Writers can’t resist writing about, well, writers. And I suppose magazine editors enjoy producing feature packages centered around magazines.
And being so close to the subject matter — I’ve worked here for five years — also grants me particular insight and understanding. So, I put aside questions concerning conflicts of interest and whatever clouded judgments may exist to enthusiastically accept the challenge to write an article in honor of Fort Worth Magazine’s 25th anniversary.
I would end up interviewing the co-founder and the magazine’s first publisher, Mark Hulme, along with co-founder, owner, and current publisher, Hal Brown, and two long-time employees, Gina Wigginton and Marion Knight. In the case of Gina, she serves as employee zero — one of the company’s first two employees — along with Diane Stow Ayres — if you’ll pardon the reference to medical terminology.
Gina was a guinea pig, agreeing to come in and test an unproven product — a complete risk considering she was coming from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which, at that time, was a behemoth and still being delivered to the doorsteps of many a Fort Worthian who were paying for the privilege.
But, somehow, she was convinced to take the leap.
Fort Worth Magazine
The story of how Gina and Diane would end up coming to work for what was then Fort Worth, Texas, magazine is one Mark tells with glee.
Of course, Mark and Hal were already well aware of this; it wasn’t their first magazine. Fort Worth, Texas, was part of Magnolia Media Group, a magazine publishing company they had started together in 1995 that had previously launched publications such as Michaels Arts and Crafts, Pet Life, Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World, Builder’s Square Home Image, Chile Pepper, and Cowboys and Country. This wasn’t their first rodeo. But, according to Mark, the magazine’s first creative director, Cheryl Corbitt, had done a standout job designing a first-rate, impressive media kit that was making the rounds.
“So, we hadn’t hired Gina or Diane yet, and the two of them were working for the Star-Telegram,” Mark says. “Jerry Scott [who at the time was the vice president of marketing for the Star-Telegram], says, ‘Well, you may or may not have heard of Fort Worth, Texas, magazine.’ He holds up the media kit in a sales meeting at the Star-Telegram in front of 60 or 70 people, and he continues, ‘But don’t worry, they won’t make it through a half-year.’”
Not long after this destroy-your-competition pep talk that Scott delivered, Gina and Diane were on the Fort Worth, Texas, sales team.
At the time, the Star-Telegram was divided between Fort Worth and Arlington, with Arlington being the Arlington Star-Telegram. The Star-Telegram was in the middle of a newspaper war with the Dallas Morning News, which had poured a lot of resources into Arlington in a bid to take the plum territory in Tarrant County away from its rival. The Star-Telegram had editorial and sales teams in Fort Worth and Arlington. Gina and Diane both worked on the Arlington side.
“We just won the competition [selling the most ads] between Arlington and the Star-Telegram, so there was a lot of fun and hype around that,” Gina says. “But after, things started getting real sketchy at the paper. There just wasn’t a lot of stability. And there was an article that ran in one of our newspapers — someone wrote that someone was launching a Fort Worth city magazine. And I was just, like, ‘Oh, wow, that’d be so cool.’
“So, we were discussing it on the sales team. We needed a media kit, we needed to see what this is all about so we can be prepared for it. So, I just called them, pretending I was interested in advertising and ask for a media kit. Problem is, I’m not a good at playing poker.”
Gina was talking to Brent Lockhart, who was the magazine’s associate publisher. He would see through Gina’s ruse, coaxing out of her that she worked at the newspaper. Lockhart would pitch the idea of working at the startup magazine and, after an interview, would offer Gina a job. She would ultimately turn down the offer, but she did refer them to Diane, her work-neighbor who at the time was the top salesperson at the Star-Telegram.
“I mean, she was top dog,” Gina says. “I really didn’t think she’d do it, but she goes and takes the job.
“Then, for the next two weeks, she’s calling me every day, telling me, ‘You’re gonna love it. We’re downtown. We’re in the Tandy tower. It’s going to be beautiful at Christmas.’ And she finally talked enough to sell me on it.”
Getting two salespeople from the Star-Telegram turned out to be a coup that would pay dividends for the magazine in both the short and long term. Mark credits Gina and Diane as being the reasons the magazine made it through its first few years of existence — a critical time when any new brand is on life-support, struggling to survive. Diane remained at the magazine, eventually rising to the rank of associate publisher, until her death in October 2019 of cancer. And Gina has stayed with the magazine through its 25-year run, remaining the publication’s longest-tenured employee.
Soon after the Star-Telegram defections of Gina and Diane, Mark and Hal received a telephone call from an agitated Wes Turner, publisher of the Star-Telegram.
“‘Stop poaching our people, or we’re going to bury you,’” Hal recalls him saying.
Gina would hear a similar spiel.
“Wes called to try to talk me out of leaving. He said we’d have to sell $400,000 in every issue and that it was never going to sustain itself. City magazines had been tried four different times, and he named off all of these different publications in town that started and didn’t make it work. He said, ‘It’s never going to make it. Never.’”
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Fort Worth, Texas magazine staff, 2008
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And, really, it shouldn’t have worked.
According to Magazine Training International, 60% of magazines published in the United States fail within their first year. And by their 10th year, only 10% of publications are left. At 25 years and counting, that makes Fort Worth Magazine an outlier. So, Turner’s and Scott’s pessimism wasn’t unfounded.
Fort Worth itself had already laid waste to a string of ill-fated city magazines. Why would this be any different? What ultimately gave Mark and Hal the gumption to hit the launch button was a recent success they had publishing a commemorative book on the opening of Bass Performance Hall in 1998. According to Hal, “When you’ve had a success like that, it no longer feels like it’s as big of a risk.”
Upon some reflection, Mark remembers it was his dad who planted the seed in his brain of a city magazine. In the magazine’s first publisher’s note, Mark is seen in a picture with his father Louie, and he explains that his father encouraged him to launch a magazine dedicated to the city more than a decade prior. The only reason he hadn’t pulled the trigger was due to a “plate full of distractions.” Mark also noted that since “Fort Worth,” like all geographic places, isn’t trademarked, and you don’t have to license it, it made question of branding much easier.
Fort Worth Magazine
Of course, in its first iteration, and up till 2017, the brand would have the somewhat superfluous suffix “Texas.”
“I’m not sure what inspired me to do that, but it was Fort Worth, comma, Texas,” Mark says.
Hal happened to recall.
“When we were considering starting the magazine, we were looking down the road (literally down I-35) and considering the possibility of launching other city magazines. Waco didn’t have one, and Austin and San Antonio either didn’t have one or they weren’t significant. Our idea was that adding ‘Texas’ to the name would tie all the publications together when we ended up launching the other three.”
Like most successful business alliances, the one between Mark and Hal is certainly one of dichotomous personalities — one, fast-talking and by their own admission scatter brained, and the other, analytical and measured. And this typically is a recipe for success.
Having never previously met, their business partnership kicked off when Mark hired Hal as the agency director for The Summit Group, an ad agency Mark founded in the late 80s. But, as with all agencies, one is now at the mercy of their clients.
Amid the recession in 1991, The Summit Group’s largest client, Michaels Stores, took their business in-house. Looking to mitigate such a blow to the agency, Hal pitched Michaels the idea of a craft magazine that successfully won back their business. “Licensing their name, we would publish, own, and fund the magazine,” Hal explains.
The publication, bred from a brainstorming session between Hal, Mark, and other agency employees, would become Michaels Arts & Crafts, a magazine the agency would sell to Michaels six years later for $3.5 million.
Mark and Hal would eventually leave The Summit Group and co-found Magnolia Media Group — named for Magnolia Avenue on the city’s South Side where they officed at the time — in 1995. In the three-year span between 1995 and 1998, the company would launch nine national lifestyle magazine titles.
The first issue of Fort Worth, Texas, would hit newsstands in December of that year — a Christmas-themed issue that included tips for decorating for Christmas, recipes for dessert, and profiles on local sportscaster Scott Murray, Shelton Givens’ Barber Shop, and Iraqi immigrants.
In the magazine’s early years, Mark credits the design, provided by Corbitt, the magazine’s creative director, as being the publication’s main attraction.
Corbitt would remain in that role until her death from cancer in 2001. Today, the magazine honors Cheryl and Diane with the annual Cheryl Corbitt and Diane Stow Ayres Day of Service, when the company collectively partakes in community service with a nonprofit.
“Editorially, we mostly did fluff,” Mark says about the magazine’s early days. “It was fine, but it was fluff. We did the occasional investigative piece that was really rewarding, but where D Magazine was embedded in politics and controversy, we were just more friendly. More positive. I feel like the magazine has grown up into that and now delivers incredible stories that only a regional magazine could do well.
“But where we started pushing D Magazine was in the graphics department. The magazines we were producing were great graphically — a lot of avant-garde, out-of-the-box stuff. We actually motivated D Magazine to improve their graphics, and they’re much better at that today.”
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Early issues did include timely and relevant stories on the Wedgwood Baptist Church shooting in 1999, the downtown tornado of 2000, and a particularly memorable interview with the elusive and disgraced Cullen Davis, who appeared at the magazine’s photoshoot sporting a tie clad in Looney Tunes. This image would grace the cover of the magazine’s February 2000 issue.
Later that year, the magazine would also introduce the Dream Home, where the publication partners with one of the area’s top builders, designers, and several subcontractors to build a multimillion-dollar luxury home. The program has remained the company’s flagship project and event since its inception. In 2020, the Dream Home expanded to three homes and is now called the Dream Street, which the magazine has showcased in 2020, 2022, and 2023.
Fort Worth Magazine
During the early 2000s, Magnolia Media Group, now officing in Hurst, was still launching and publishing numerous titles, including Signature Pools & Spas, Innovative Home, and DS News. Mark’s attention had turned to other potential avenues for revenue, while Hal’s attention remained firmly on Fort Worth, Texas.
Hal, born, bred, and primed in Fort Worth — a TCU grad whose favorite color is purple, favorite animal is a horned frog, and favorite quote from Bartlett’s is “Riff Ram Bah Zoo” — wanted to give the magazine the attention it deserved. And, more importantly, he also wanted to give the city the magazine it deserved. By now, the year was 2005, Hal had become publisher of the magazine, and he would approach his business partner with the idea of selling him his shares of the company and purchasing the title.
“He was the face of Fort Worth, Texas, magazine by then,” Mark says of Hal. “It’s kind of funny, it’s like a marriage and we weren’t having any issues. We agreed to never go after one another’s employees, and we ended with a handshake.
“And it all worked out for the best. It’s one of those sweet business stories that doesn’t come around too much. Even though I don’t have any ownership in the magazine, I would love for it to be so successful that people would wonder if I regret selling. And I’d, of course, have to say, ‘No, not in this case because I love Hal, and I want to see it succeed.’ It’s a Fort Worth story, not a Dallas story.”
Hal would then relocate the entire team back to its namesake town of Fort Worth — into a large glass building on Camp Bowie Boulevard, to be exact. And this is where the magazine’s offices remain today.
“When we moved [back to Fort Worth], Hal was the biggest hero ever,” said Marion Knight, who’s been an account executive at the magazine since 2004. “No. 1, he bought the magazine. No. 2, he moved us back to Fort Worth. I mean, it makes sense. Fort Worth Magazine in Fort Worth, Texas, right?”
Hal A. Brown, owner and publisher of Fort Worth Magazine.
Hal has been sole owner and publisher of the magazine for 18 years. During that time, editors, account executives, designers, and fill-in-the-job-titles have come and gone. The magazine’s annual “Best of Fort Worth” parties dropped jaws, a story on issues plaguing Sundance Square opened eyes, and weekly foodie newsletters shattered diets. We’ve been through tornados, pandemics, apocalyptic snowstorms, and the ups and downs of Horned Frog football. The printed word has been at its apex. The printed word has been dead in the water. And the printed word has made a comeback and is here to stay. Through it all, the company has survived and continued to evolve.
In 2015, the magazine launched its business publication, Fort Worth Inc., which plays host to two of the company’s flagship annual events, Entrepreneur of Excellence gala, and The 400 and Person of the Year reception. Two years later, the magazine and its logo would get a redesign, and two years after that, ground broke on the first Dream Street. And along the way, Hal finally gave in to brevity and dropped the “Texas” from the magazine’s name.
“Since day one, most readers called it Fort Worth Magazine,” Hal recalls. “And for 19 years, I would have to remind them the name of the magazine is Fort Worth, Texas. Finally, in 2017, I decided to go with the people’s choice and drop the ‘Texas.’
“When someone refers to it as Fort Worth, Texas, I know I’m talking to a long-time reader.”
Whether we’re launching cutest pet competitions, introducing our readers to little-known taco joints on the east side, or taking deep dives into the personalities that make up our city, new ideas and new stories to tell are a constant. In journalism, plans are difficult to make. One simply tells the story that exists — in inverted pyramid — and you have to wait for things to unfold. It’s the city of Fort Worth that’s providing the content, we’re just here to relay the info.
