Texas Spur celebrates Texas Treasure Business Award

Texas Sen. Charles Perry presented the Texas Historical Commission’s Texas Treasure Business Award to Barbara Brannon (left), editor, and Kay Ellington, publisher of The Texas Spur, which has operated continuously in Dickens County since 1909. (Texas Spur photo by Fred Cervantes)

The Texas Spur received the Texas Treasure Business award in style during a presentation at the recently restored Palace Theater in Spur.

The newspaper was featured in a segment of the Texas Country Reporter, one of the last by retiring host Bob Phillips. It was filmed in 2022 and 2023. The segment aired March 2. In a special arrangement with producers, it was presented on the historic Palace Theater’s screen during the Texas Treasure Business Award ceremonies March 10 in Spur.

The Texas Historical Commission sponsors the Texas Treasure Business Award to recognize for-profit businesses that have been in continuous operation under local ownership in Texas for 50 years or more. Research and a nomination process are required.

From the Texas Spur

If the newspaper is said to be “the first draft of history,” sometimes the newspaper enterprise gets to take its place in that history.

The Texas Historical Commission bestows the Texas Treasure Business Award on for-profit businesses that have been in continuous operation under local ownership in Texas for 50 years or more. Research and a nomination process are required.

The Texas Spur qualified for the award in 2022, but the opportunity for a formal presentation at last arrived in March 2024.

As Texas Tech University Southwest Collection archivist Austin Allison noted during the March 10 presentation event at Spur’s Palace Theater, resources to document the nomination were readily available due to digital preservation of the newspaper’s own issues going back to volume 1, number 1, Oct. 1, 1909.

“One of the earliest opportunities I had to work with [in the Southwest Collection] was the Texas Spur, which was the first newspaper microfilm project for Tech in 1947–48,” Allison said. He explained that the Spur connection of Tech president Clifford B. Jones likely led to the salvaging of back issues after a fire at the former publisher’s garage. Today, more than 250,000 images of historic newspapers are available for free online research as part of that project.

State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, who represents Spur and Dickens County in his district, was on hand to present the award to current publisher-owners Kay Ellington and Barbara Brannon.

Perry was introduced by Dickens County Judge Kevin Brendle, who gave Perry a shout-out for the work he is currently heading up with the Texas Water Development Board — water, like a newspaper, 

being another of those essential components to keep rural communities vital.

In the “Texas Country Reporter” television segment aired on the Palace’s movie screen during the event, Texas Spur publisher Kay Ellington commented on other virtues of a small town. “There’s nothing like driving down the street and seeing people sitting on their front porch reading your newspaper.”

In accepting the award for the newspaper enterprise, Ellington said, “This is an award for the city of Spur.” Businesses advertise, and subscribers patronize those local businesses. “People who live here understand the value of a newspaper,” she said. “They keep their connections to Spur. This is a tribute to this unique town.”

The Texas Spur was founded in fall 1909 by publisher Oran R. McClure, who had already launched a newspaper in nearby Rotan. Seeing the prospects for Spur as the new townsite was being planned, he brought his business to Dickens County and continued to publish The Texas Spur until 1931. Ownership changed a dozen or so times over the years, but the newspaper has not missed a week (to researchers’ knowledge) in its estimated 5,958 issues —counting this one.

Published in the Texas Spur March 14, 2024.