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1943-44 L.M. Watson Sweetwater News

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Luther Watson had what might be called a “double dose” as 66th president of Texas Press Association. He was vice president in 1942 when James Donahue was elected president and filled in while Donahue served in the military.

Watson was born in Arkansas. He came to Texas in 1910, settled in Sweetwater and found a job at a newspaper in nearby Trent. Later he worked for a larger newspaper in Merkel.

He and two associates published Oklahoma newspapers in Eldorado and in Altus.

In 1912 he returned to Sweetwater and joined the Reporter as Linotype operator. In 1919 he and I.S. Focht formed Watson-Focht Company, and in 1936 established the Nolan County News. Watson was publisher until 1948 when he sold because of ill health to Reporter Publishing Company.

While in Sweetwater, Watson was mayor, school board member, chairman of the hospital board and in 1940 Sweetwater’s number-one citizen.