Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame inducts three industry leaders

The Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame grew to 64 outstanding Texas newspaper professionals with the induction of the 2023 Class of Honorees: Dave Campbell, Suzanne Bardwell and Larry Jackson.

Induction ceremonies were held at the recent TPA Convention and Trade Show.

In his keynote address at the luncheon, outgoing President Leonard Woolsey reminded members of the theme of his acceptance speech a year ago, “Time to Get Our Swagger Back,” pointing out that newspapers are leaders in the communities they serve.

Swagger is not bravado or blind confidence,” he noted. “It is earned and forged by believing in your true charge - it is forged over years of service; you are earning your swagger.”

He also noted the importance newspapers still carry in their communities, using a few points from a recent survey commissioned by TPA that showed 85 percent of Texas adults read print or digital newspapers every month and that 88 percent Texans believe newspaper advertising is important, especially public notice advertising.

Woolsey encouraged members to continue walking tall through challenges knowing that “our best days are ahead of us.”

In presenting the Hall of Fame honor for the late Dave Campbell, TPA Executive Vice President Donnis Baggett recalled his friendship with Campbell, who was sports editor of the Waco Herald-Tribune for 40 years. During that tenure, Campbell started his now famous Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Magazine, a staple of high school and college football in Texas. “He wrote about every team in every district,” Baggett said. “Every fall it was there to help kick off another season.”

Although he sold the magazine in 1985, Campbell continued to be active in promoting Texas sports throughout this lifetime, writing two books when he was in his 90s. Campbell died Dec. 10, 2021 at age 96. His wife of more than 70 years, Reba, died in January 2020. They had two daughters, Becky Campbell Roche and Julie Campbell Carlson, and three grandchildren.

Accepting the award was Campbell’s daughter, Julie Carlson, who noted her father’s love of sports and football in particular.

Texas Newspaper Foundation President Greg Shrader recalled working with honoree Suzanne Bardwell in the North and East Texas Press Association when he was publishing The Daily Sentinel in Nacogdoches and related how convincing she was in promoting the regional group and the Texas newspaper industry. He noted that Bardwell had a 33-year career in teaching, earning the 2013 UIL Max R. Haddick Teacher of the Year award presented annually to the best high school journalism instructor in Texas. “Then, she took on the newspaper business,” he said, “working with her husband Jim as they started Bardwell, Ink and purchased the Gladewater Mirror, the White Oak Independent and the Lindale News and Times. She was also active in the Retired Teachers Association and led a group to Austin to lobby legislators in 2017.

Jim Bardwell also recalled Suzanne as a force to be reckoned with and related a story about Suzanne’s trip with other retired teachers to a rally on the grounds of the capitol in 2017. He said Suzanne became ill from the heat and was taken to a hospital where their state representative visited to check on her. She thanked him and then said “while I have your attention...” and began to talk to him about the retirement benefits issues teachers had been rallying to support.

“Suzanne had tremendous impact on her students and she made a difference in the community,” Bardwell said. “She would be so proud of this honor and I wish she was here.”

Suzanne Bardwell died in a car accident in January 2022, during her husband’s tenure as president of TPA. On hand for the ceremonies with Jim Bardwell were the couple’s son Josh Bardwell and daughter-in-law Jennifer Bardwell.

Shrader described Larry Jackson as a friend to Texas newspapers whose long career began on a bicycle delivering newspapers. After graduating from the University of Texas, he started with the Arlington Daily News and served as city editor of the Laredo Times, later as managing editor of the Henderson Daily News, then editor of the Austin Citizen, and served as publisher of the Round Rock Leader, Pecos Enterprise, Corona-Norcal Independent, Wharton Journal-Spectator and the Fayette County Record.

Jackson served as president of the Texas Newspaper Foundation for many years and noted himself that he had been emcee for the first induction ceremonies in 2007 and many after that. He served as the 121st president of TPA in 1998-99 and as president of the South Texas Press Association in 1996-97. He also served as Texas’ state chairman to the National Newspaper Association.

In his comments, Jackson praised community newspapers as connectors in their communities. He pointed out that the U.S. Surgeon General recently issued a health advisory declaring an “unprecedented public heath crisis of social isolation and loneliness.”

“We connect people to other people. We foster and nourish their sense of community,” Jackson said. “It’s hard for a community to BE a community without a community newspaper,” he added.

“With every obituary you publish you affirm the value and meaning of some individual’s life. With every picture you print of a high school valedictorian you affirm the importance of effort and accomplishment ... When you as newspaper editors and publishers and writers sustain and strengthen the ties that connect people, you are doing God’s work. It matters. You matter.”

Jackson and his wife Susie have three children and seven grandchildren, many of whom attended the induction ceremonies, along with other relatives.

Biographies of the new honorees have joined the Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame roster on the foundation’s website, www.tnf.net.