EDITORIAL | spur@thetexasspur.com
“Dad used to set type right here,” said David Harrison, one of the two Harrison scions who, back in the day, tidied up the shop, bundled and delivered newspapers, and did every other sort of task that needed doing while their mom sold the ads and kept the accounts and their dad processed film in the darkroom, operated the linotype, made the plates for the press, inked the rollers, ran the paper through, and gathered the finished sheets for the folder.
He pointed to the spot on the old shop floor where the composing tables once stood.
“And then he proofread it backwards.”
If we ever needed a reality check, on the afternoon our newspaper enterprise was being honored for surviving 114 years of doing business in Texas, well, that would about do the trick.
David and Chuck Harrison, whose parents ran The Texas Spur for 39 years, knew firsthand that it took a village to publish this modest weekly. The required skills were myriad. Ingenuity, determination, and diplomacy were essential, too.
Greg and Cindi Taylor took over from the Harrisons and published the newspaper for two decades after that, moving The Texas Spur from hot type to to computer.
These days we have it easy by comparison.
We take publicationquality photos with a candy-bar-sized telephone we hold in our palm. We compose stories via nearweightless electrons and beam them anywhere in the world within nanoseconds. A truck brings the finished papers to us, ink dried, addresses labeled, sheets folded.
And yet, when we walk through the doors of this old building, the ghosts of all those long-ago ideas, concepts, and words on the page remain. They inspire us to do more, and better.
LastSunday,manyofour current newspaper team— dispersed throughout ten counties, and contributing to a network that’s grown to five weeklies—came to Spur to celebrate with us the survival and success of this enterprise.
If you are among them, whether or not you got to be here and share in the spotlight, we thank you for sharing your talents. You’re an integral part of the gazillions of words and images that have constituted the record of this part of Texas, going back 125 years and more.
We’ve taken a brief respite and enjoyed a reunion. We proudly display the Texas Treasure Business Award sign on our front glass.
Now, it’s time to proofread yet another week’s edition.
I’m only too happy we don’t have to do it in reverse.
