Golden 50 - 2023

2023 Golden 50 Award honorees

DONNIS BAGGETT

Texas Press Association

Donnis Baggett, born in Livingston in 1952, graduated in 1973 from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches with a bachelor’s degree in communications/journalism and a minor in political science. While at SFA, he served as editor of the Pine Log, the university’s student newspaper. He also served on a committee that rewrote the student government constitution — his first involvement in politics. He called that experience “baptism by immersion in the deep end of the pool.”

He went on to work at newspapers in Livingston and Longview before The Dallas Morning News hired him in 1976. He worked as a reporter, assistant city editor and assistant state editor before being named state editor in 1982. He later was promoted to assistant managing editor and was assigned responsibility for The News’ Sunday edition. While he served in that position The News reached its all-time high in Sunday circulation.

From 1992 to 1994, he served two terms as president of the Press Club of Dallas.

After A.H. Belo Corp., owner of The Dallas Morning News, purchased The Bryan-College Station Eagle in late 1995, Baggett was named publisher and editor of The Eagle. He served eight years on the board of directors for the Texas Press Association in the late 1990s and as president of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association in 2004.

In 2010 he was hired as publisher of the Waco Tribune-Herald, and in 2012 he joined the staff of the Texas Press Association as executive vice president. His primary responsibility is the association’s governmental affairs program. 

Baggett is a recipient of the Mayborn Award and is a member of the Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame.

JIM BARDWELL

Gladewater Mirror

Jim Bardwell is a 50-year veteran of the newspaper business and is currently the Chairman of the Board of the Texas Press Association. He also is a member of the National Newspaper Association and the North & East Texas Press Association, where he served twice as NETPA president. He is also the longest serving TPA board member to date, first taking a seat at the TPA Board of Directors table in 1997.

He has won numerous regional, state and national press awards over his years in the newspaper industry – such as  Journalist of the Year, Photographer of the Year, and was honored with the Dallas Press Club’s highest award – a “Katie” – for investigative reporting of social and economic inequities in Longview’s predominately minority community. The investigation resulted in sweeping changes and better representation on city boards.

Jim also was honored by the Associated Press for exposing flaws in the National Weather Service’s $1.4-billion NEXRAD weather radar system which would have left many counties in the nation and East Texas – including his home Upshur County – without proper radar coverage and vulnerable to tornadoes and severe weather. The series of stories prompted Congressional Hearings and a revamp of the system. He also was cited for breaking numerous national stories such as the fatal New Year’s Eve plane crash of teen idol Ricky Nelson and Texas’s largest manhunt in the 1990s following the kidnapping and murder of three East Texas teens and the subsequent escape from jail and recapture of their murderer.

Over the past 50 years in the newspaper industry Jim has served as reporter, photographer, sports editor, news editor, East Texas Editor, and publisher of numerous newspapers and ran a regional printing plant in East Texas for several newspaper chains – starting with Harte-Hanks’ Commerce Journal and Greenville Herald Banner; Echo Publishing’s Sulphur Springs News-Telegram; Cox’s Longview Daily News and Longview Morning Journal; Westward Communications’ Gladewater Mirror and regional printing plant, Big Sandy/Hawkins Journal, Grand Saline Sun, Edgewood Enterprise, Lindale News & Times, and Overton Press and he started East Texas Sports Magazine. 

Ten years ago, he and his wife Suzanne started their own community newspaper group - Bardwell Ink - with the Gladewater Mirror, Big Sandy/Hawkins Journal, Lindale News & Times, and White Oak Independent.

In the early 1970s, Jim worked on the Longview High School newspaper and yearbook staffs and later Kilgore College newspaper staff and East Texas State University newspaper and magazine staffs as photographer and reporter. But even earlier he started a newspaper while growing up in Dallas and in the 5th grade. He and 2 friends ran The Daily Planet – that’s right, Clark Kent and Superman played a pivotal role in his career selection. The paper was short lived, however, due to labor issues and small revenue streams. Subscriptions were 3-cents/week.

He covered the Dallas Cowboys in the 1970s and 80s (when you could count on a win) and the Texas Rangers (his claim to fame was being chased out of the dugout by a bat-wielding manager Billy Martin), and interviewed US presidents and want-to-be presidents on the campaign trail, as well as covering county pig races (sometimes it is hard to tell them two apart).

He even crossed the line a couple of times – tossing his hat into the political arena and being elected to the East Mountain City Council in the 1990s, but lost a bid for mayor and later lost a bid for county commissioner. 

Jim’s volunteer work includes serving on the board of directors of the Gladewater Round-Up Rodeo where he was named “Director of the Year” in 2019, Past-president of the Gladewater Economic Development Corporation, Gladewater’s Recycling Program, Gladewater Gusher Days board member, and is Gladewater Chamber of Commerce treasurer and was named Gladewater Chamber’s Man of the Year in 2022. He served on the Upshur County Child Welfare Board and was president of the Gregg County Crime Stoppers board. Jim also has served on the Gregg County and Hunt County Humane Society’s board of directors. And in his spare time, he helps the Gladewater Rotary Club by building ramps in Gregg and Upshur County through the Texas Ramp Project.

Jim was born in Longview where his family settled in the 1890s and still live. Jim’s Texas roots go all the way back to 1836 when his ancestor, Solomon B. Bardwell, fought in the Battle of San Jacinto.

Jim lost his lovely bride Suzanne of 47 years in 2022. Suzanne, who taught journalism and was adviser for the student newspaper and yearbook at White Oak High School for 22 years before retiring in 2013 to work with him at the Gladewater Mirror, was his guiding light both in his career and life. Jim’s son Josh is firefighter and is Chief of the West Mountain VFD and his daughter-in-law Jennifer is a Nurse Practitioner Hospitalist with Christus Good Shepherd Medical Center.

For 50 years Jim has tried to be the watchdog for the people when it came to local government. He has always reminded government officials that the budget – whether it be city, county or state – is the people’s money. Sometimes they forget that – and need to be reminded.

BUD KENNEDY

Fort Worth Star Telegram

Bud Kennedy shares this column about his career:

My first newspaper appearance was before I was born.

I was sold for $600 in a Star-Telegram classified “babies for adoption” ad -- 

Until 1957, that was legal in Texas.

Like a lot of old newshounds, I didn’t grow up with a lot of toys, but we had an old Smith-Corona typewriter.

I would sit and retype stories out of the old Fort Worth Press evening newspaper. My mother even got The Press to bring me down so they could write a story about the 4-year-old boy who could type and read --

We read The Press at home and when we could afford it, the morning Star-Telegram. I sat like a little businessman every morning before school and drank 2 cups of coffee while reading the morning paper.

This was in third grade.

I always read the paper – it brought the whole world to our house every day – and I got to read about the countries in my stamp collection, another lost part of childhood.

Eventually, The Press added a Q-and-A column named Action Desk. I wrote Action Desk and asked if I could come visit.

By then, I was 11. Marvin Garrett remembered me and had me come down and take a tour. The editor, Walter Humphrey, said to come back some day and he’d give me a job.

I took him up on that the week after I graduated from high school. I was 17 and had been a high school sports correspondent for the Star-Telegram – there’s another whole story about that.

The Star-Telegram called when I was at the high school newspaper and wanted me to call in the score and stats from the Arlington Heights game in San Angelo.

But when I called it, the operator transferred me the wrong way and the call taker told me to dictate a story.

So I did.

It came out in the Saturday morning Star-Telegram as “By Bud Kennedy  Star-Telegram Sports Writer.”

The Press gave me my first full-time internship after high school, and by the second week I was covering the Rangers and the Milwaukee Brewers playing Major League Baseball.

I was 17.

I worked at the Press in sports two years and also on the copy desk, where my job was to (1) work the rim, (2) do the newsbriefs packages, (3) edit the op-ed page, (4) edit the Sunday TV magazine and (5) change the ribbons on the wire machines.

I decided to move to Austin and the Statesman hired me at age 19 to cover Austin city high school football. I started the same year as Kirk Bohls.

I always wanted to do page design and wound up working the sports slot.

The layouts caught the eye of a Dallas editor and the Times Herald hired me in 1977.

I designed the sports section for the next year – solid.

And I mean solid. I worked 362 nights of 365.

Then I went to the Dallas News and had three nights off every week.

At the News, I designed the first Sports Day section and covered TCU and pro hockey some. But I’m lucky that I was also the designated copy editor for their columnists, Skip Bayless, David Casstevens and Randy Galloway.

I had already handled Blackie Sherrod’s copy. So along the way I made up my own mind about what made a good and bad column.

I went to the Star-Telegram. worked up to sports editor and then started working in special projects, features and entertainment. I handled the weekend guide and started writing a column named “Eats Beat” about food and restaurants – that’s a sideline to this day.

Several of the older columnists retired at once and I was drafted to become the evening edition lead columnist.

The managing editor said I was picked because I was from Fort Worth, knew all the local news stories and wrote really good memos.

That was November 1987.

I’ve kept the job ever since.

I tell people I’ve had this job nearly 36 years – and I haven’t been fired, sued or shot at.

I’ll let everybody decide whether that means I’ve done a good or a bad job!