The May edition of Fort Worth, Texas magazine should be showing up in your mailboxes and on the news stands soon. You will find much to read in it.
I've already written about the golfer story — why professional golfers choose to locate in and around Fort Worth when they can live anywhere they wish. There will be more on that in a bit.
You also are going to love Kidding Around, a children’s fashion layout. We generally use professional models for fashion shoots for a variety of reasons. But these aren’t models. These are “real” kids. And those who were at the fashion shoot report that it was a great deal of fun.
I wrote two of the main articles – not especially planned that way since I like to have a variety of voices in the magazine. When that happens, it is because we moved something around. In this case, it was an article on John and Barney Chapman and their annual roundup and branding which has become a social occasion for several hundred people early in May. It was planned for earlier but held for space.
The Chapmans come from a long line of Texas ranchers and they are still doing it the way their daddy did it, keeping Western tradition alive.
The other article – about the Fort Worth Star-Telegram – was difficult for me. I worked at the paper from September 1986 to April 2009 and I love the newspaper.
I had gotten out of the news business entirely. But on Jan. 28, 1986, at 11:38 a.m. Eastern time, that changed. I had covered, among other things, aerospace for United Press International. As I was standing in an office facing south from Jacksonville, Fla., to watch a shuttle launch, Challenger exploded. I can still close my eyes and see that lacy smoke pattern in the sky.
So I decided that I wanted to be back in journalism and I picked one newspaper to approach. Managing Editor Walker Lundy and Executive Editor Jack Tinsley hired me to come to Fort Worth.
It was a great ride – top management kept moving me around into different roles, which was great for my low-boredom factor – until I wound up as editor of the editorial pages. Twice. I was the newspaper's Ombudsman in-between those assignments.
But times are tough at the Star-Telegram now. That it is a problem facing many newspapers is a fact but that doesn’t make it any less significant. As an aside, I avoided to the best of my ability using proprietary information from my days at the paper in the article. And I used the most conservative figures when reporting estimates that were impossible for me to check. The newspaper was offered a list of emailed questions but did not respond. I avoided interviews with current staff members who would be limited in what they could say publicly and I didn’t want to use anonymous sources in quotes.
I must say that I admire the continued coverage the newspaper – with its greatly reduced resources – still provides for this area.
And I wish it and my former colleagues who labor there all the best.
As with all articles, there was information we were not able to fit into the space we had allocated in the magazine. I'm including some of that below.
Publishers of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Amon G. Carter Sr. — 1906-1955
Amon G. Carter Jr. — 1955-1982
Phillip J. Meek — 1982-1986
Richard L. Connor — 1986-1996
Wesley R. Turner — 1997-2007
Gary Wortel — 2008-current
McClatchy Stock Prices
Jan. 1 2004 -- $70.98
Jan. 1, 2005 -- $69.93
March 1, 2005 -- $74.16
Jan. 1, 2006 -- $56.50
Jan. 1, 2007 -- $38.68
Jan. 1, 2008 -- $10.77
Jan. 1, 2009 -- $0.66
Jan. 1, 2010 -- $5.35
Jan. 1, 2011 -- $5.10
Jan. 1, 2012 -- $2.35
March 1, 2012 -- $2.54
Source: E-Trade
And, as promised, back to the golf story.
We collected the lifetime earnings of the PGA and LPGA golfers from our area. It's an interesting picture. These figures are complete through the Masters. They came from the professional golf association Web sites.
Sabbatini, Rory $24,651,617
Mahan, Hunter $20,797,740
Campbell, Chad $20,461,218
Crane, Ben $16,546,893
Rollins, John $15,952,648
Senden, John $14,197,274
Pampling, Rod $13,344,369
Henry, J.J. $11,612,988
Palmer, Ryan $11,437,425
Brooks, Mark $ 9,448,226
Jobe, Brandt $ 8,558,276
Stankowski, Paul $ 7,273,517
Chalmers, Greg $ 6,982,378
Stanford, Angela $ 6,797,683
Hamilton, Todd $ 5,355,669
Ridings, Tag $ 3,739,536
Young, Heather $ 3,063,923
Haas, Hunter $ 1,582,238
Turner, Jerod $ 259,957
Killeen, J.J. $ 139,188
Enjoy …
