HISTORICAL HONORS Longtime Dickens County Historical Commission chair Harry Bob Martin (above, left), shown here with his wife, Mary, at the Palace Theater's anniversary showing of “Mackintosh and T.J., is the 2022 recipient of the THC’s John Ben Shepperd Award. Whether folks come to Spur’s Palace Theater to for event, whether they turn off the highway and snap a photo of the picturesque H.A.C. Brummett Law Office or the giant spur, whether they follow FM roads across the canyons to find an abandoned schoolhouse location on the tourism map, whether they consult content from afar on the Dickens County GenWeb site—residents and visitors are all benefitting from Dickens CHC work in which Harry Bob and Mary Martin have had a hand. | THE TEXAS SPUR
Among the 254 county historical commissions in Texas, there are few entrusted to own and manage historical properties themselves— but even fewer with chairs who have selflessly plowed their time and energies into operating such properties for the benefit of the community, for nearly two decades.
Harry Bob Martin of Spur, a member of the Dickens County Historical Commission (DCHC) since 1999 and chair since 2003 will be awarded Texas’s highest honor for CHC chairs Feb. 2 at the Real Places Conference in Austin. The John Ben Shepperd County Historical Commission Leadership Award has been presented annually since 1992. In that time only two other chairs from the Plains or Panhandle have received it, Maria Lockwood for Crosby County (2000) and Sandy Fortenberry for Lubbock County (2020).
Named for former Texas attorney general and THC member John Ben Shepperd, who is considered the driving force behind the creation of the Texas historical marker program, this leadership award for recognizes “outstanding individual leadership necessary to carry out an aggressive and well-balanced preservation program” according to the THC website. Born in 1941 in Roswell, N.M., Harry Bob Martin attended public schools at Dickens, Texas, through 7th grade, then moved with his family to Hamlin, where he attended public schools and graduated from Hamlin High School in 1959. He married Mary in September 1961, and they moved to College Station. He graduated from A&M College of Texas, 1963 and has been active in Aggie Muster annually for 63 years. The Martins have three children. In 1997, the couple moved to the Martin family ranch outside Spur, where they still reside.
Spur’s Palace Theater a multi-decade achievement.
Bringing to the table hisdecadesofmanagement experience in some of West Texas’s most iconic state parks as well as a lifetime of ranching and a dedication to the study of Texas
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