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1917-18 Sherwood Spotts Bonham Favorite

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William Sherwood Spotts, 39th president, became a member of Texas Press Association in 1906. Spotts was born in Bonham on Aug. 10, 1876. At 13 he had his first taste of ink at the Bonham News where he served as devil.

On April 17, 1897, Spotts vouched as a witness to the appearance of a "mysterious airship" in the night above the city of Bonham, making a whizzing and whirring sound and moving southwest toward Denton. A story about the event, titled "High in the Heavens," was published in the Dallas Morning News on April 18, 1897. Other sightings of such a craft said to be "about the size of a boxcar" and moving at a high rate of speed in some accounts, were reported in other cities.

Spotts purchased the Bonham Democrat in 1903, which after two years was consolidated with the Bonham Favorite with Spotts as one of the owners and manager.

His ownership of the Favorite continued until the latter part of 1928 when he sold to H.A. McDougall, though he left management of the paper in 1923 when he joined the Harben-Spotts Company and moved to Richardson.

In October 1899 Spotts and Ruie Helbing were married. They had one son.

Spotts died July 21, 1931. Mrs. Spotts died Oct. 27, 1961. Both were buried at Wild Wood Cemetery in Bonham.