Texas Spur, Caprock Courier garner TPA awards

At the 141st convention of the Texas Press Association, June 10–12, 2021, in Denton, The Caprock Courier and The Texas Spur were among approximately 80 Texas daily, semi-weekly, and weekly newspapers receiving annual awards for outstanding journalism in dozens of categories in nine divisions.

The 2019–20 Better Newspaper Contest honored content published between Sept. 1, 2019 and Aug. 31, 2020.

The Texas Spur, the flagship newspaper among the group of three West Texas weeklies now published in Spur, received recognition in six categories:

• First place, News Writing, to Barbara Brannon for “Our Church Is on Fire,” Jan. 23, 2020, and “K-9 Dodger Sworn In,” March 5, 2020;

• Second place, Page Design, to Barbara Brannon, Kay Ellington and Claudia Pérez;

• Third place, Advertising, to Kay Ellington, Barbara Brannon and Claudia Pérez for Spur Security Bank, “We Know Cattle Country,” Oct. 10, 2019, and “We Know Cotton Country,” Oct. 24, 2019; and Spur Hardware, “Local Color, Aug. 27, 2020;

• Third place, among all weekly newspapers in: Public Notice, to Barbara Brannon and Kay Ellington for “Back on the Rolls” In-Trust Proper-ties/ Property Tax series, Jan.30 and Feb. 6, 2020;

• Fourth place, Headline Writing, to Barbara Brannon for “A Rafter from the Rafters, Nov. 28, 2019; “Lubbockite Lands Lunker at Lake,” Feb. 20, 202; and “Sermon on the Mound,” April 9, 2020;

• Fourth place, Sports Coverage, to Jake Edwards, Kay Ellington, Stephanie Martinez and Phillip Presson for issues of Sept. 12 and Sept. 19, 2019.

The Caprock Courier, which the Paragraph Ranch LLC group owned and published for only seven out of the 12 months covered by the contest, won awards in five categories:

• First place, Editorial Writing, to Liz Adams for “We Shall Be Free,” April 30, 2020, and “Behind the Mask,” May 14, 2020;

• First place, Headline Writing, to Liz Adams for “Where to Drive for a Dive,” June 4, 2020, and Barbara Brannon, “New Pad for Paducah Pantry,” April 16, 2020 and “Goal to Go: Graduation,” May 21, 2020;

• Second place, Advertising Composition, to Barbara Brannon for Bison Café “Bye, Son” Graduation Ad, May 28, 2020, Spur Hardware “Local Color” Ad, Aug. 27, 2020, and Ed Harris Lumber “Need Paint?” Ad, spring 2020;

• Third place, News Photography, to Tori Minick Edwards for “Two Survive Plane Crash Near Turkey,” Sept. 12, 2019, “Fire Takes Happy Bug,” May 28, 2020, “Fires in the Night,” June 18, 2020, to Barbara Brannon for “Silverton Class of 2020,” May 28, 2020, and to Liz Adams for “Briscoe County Celebration,” Aug. 13, 2020;

• Fourth place, Page Design, to Barbara Brannon for issues of Aug. 6, 13, 20 and 27, 2020.

Also recognized among four inductees into the Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame was community journalist and media attorney Don R. Richards of Lubbock, who grew up in Jayton, where his father owned the weekly newspaper. Richards, one of the state’s staunchest guardians of press rights practicing today, is a sixth-generation Texan and fourth-generation journalist who told the audience that he had “sacrificed [his] pound of flesh to the publishing world at the early age of 22 months,” when he thrust a piece of wood into the gears of a printing press operated by his father and lost most of four fingers. “I have printers’ ink in my blood” as a result, Richardson claimed with good humor.

A senior parter in the Lubbock firm of Richards, Elder & Gibson, Richards serves on the board of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas and is in his 34th year of publisher of “The Banner of Love,” one of Texas’ oldest religious newspapers.