Community newspapers do a few things better than any other news publication. We document the milestones of everyday life. We share birth announcements. We share birthdays, graduations, marriages, anniversaries and— in the end— deaths.
Community newspapers tell stories of lives well-lived, and we do so with a first-person nuance you just don’t get from the Dallas Morning News or the New York Times. Often, we tell stories of folks we know and loved. It’s a basic tenet of a community newspaper, and it’s what I’m doing here.
The serendipity of it all is, this week, I’m penning a remembrance about the man who taught me my first lessons about newspapering— the man who first instilled within me those basic tenets about community journalism from an early age.
Former Whitesboro News-Record owner and publisher James Leslie Davison passed away last week at the age of 72. Jim was my first newspaper boss. For 34 years, he and his wife Xina owned the newspaper that my wife and I now own— the oldest newspaper in Grayson County. But the intersections between us and the Davisons’ are more numerous than just that.
The City of Whitesboro was set to celebrate its centennial in late spring of 1973. The News-Record published a special edition to celebrate the event just a month after suffering an unexpected loss. The publisher, a young man named Ron Smith, died on May 26, 1973, from an undetected congenital heart condition. His widow was uninterested and ill-prepared to manage a weekly newspaper and, within a month, brokered a deal to sell the business. The buyers were a young couple— both of whom worked for Smith at the newspaper— Jim and Xina Davison.
Jim was a photographer, reporter and pressman. Xina was the ad manager. They were in their early 20s. It’s unclear to me if they met while working at the News-Record, but they grew up seven miles apart so there is a good chance they had known each other prior.
Jim once told me that Mrs. Smith just wanted out. He said she was not interested in newspapers and never wanted to come to Whitesboro in the first place. Jim and Xina were interested though. Both had studied journalism at Grayson County College. Jim had then taken advanced classes at East Texas State in Commerce and North Texas State in Denton. Xina was a junior at TWU in the spring of 1973.
Early on, Jim was active in the business community. He joined several civic organizations and served as president of the Whitesboro Area Chamber of Commerce. Somewhere along the way, Jim took another job. He went to work for the Postal Service as a rural carrier in Whitesboro. I was never told for sure, but based upon the timeline, I assume Jim and Xina learned a fact that is still true today.
I assume they discovered they were expecting their firstborn and that, if you want to make payroll, a well-staffed weekly newspaper— by itself— is a tough way to feed a growing family.
It helps for someone to have a day job. Jennifer and I can relate to this completely. So, Jim started carrying the mail. He edited, covered sports and composed the paper in the evenings.
Xina ran the office and made sure the advertising budget was met. Clint was born and, a few years later, along came Rhett.
Jim and Xina ran the News-Record for 34 years. They ushered it from the days of moveable type, to paste-up, offset printing and eventually into the modern era of digital design and online publishing. They moved the News-Record to our current location in 1986.
My grandmother went to work for Jim and Xina in the mid-1990s when she retired from teaching. She covered general assignments and shined as one of the best feature writers our industry has ever known. About that same time, my mother also went to work composing ads at the News-Record. I was in junior high school and would walk to the newspaper office after school. Before long, I jumped in the fray.
The police scanner would go off and I’d jump in the car with my grandmother to go take photos of an auto accident. I went along to help her cover the Loy Lake Stock Show. I saw how they pasted the old hard copy page proofs together on a long drafting table. It must have been fall of 1995. I was in seventh grade. Jim was planning coverage for the upcoming football season, and he was short on photographers. He needed someone to shoot Whitesboro Bearcat football. I told him I’d do it. And he let me.
He gave me a camera and a roll of film— something young photographers, in the age of digital photography, know nothing about. I’d get a ride to the games and stand on the Bearcat sideline— camera ready.
“It’s more friendly to stay on the sideline of the team you are covering,” Jim told me. “Whether they are the home team or away— stick around the folks you know. Look for the offensive shots when a runner is coming towards you. It’s best to get them square in the shot so you can read their jersey number clearly— it makes it easier to ID them later in the cutline.” And those were my marching orders. It was a great training ground.
Almost 30 years later, these are essentially the same orders I give my students when they go to shoot their first football game. One roll of film meant I had 36 opportunities to get a few decent shots. Jim was only buying one roll. If I needed more than one, that was on me, and I sure couldn’t afford that. I contributed to the News-Record through high school and into college. I wrote sports and football season kept me busy. The pay wasn’t great. It still isn’t, but it was fun and the training I received was priceless.
In February 2008, Jim and Xina sold the News-Record to a man from Muenster named Scott Wood. Jim told me at the time that they were just tired. Running a newspaper is not a 9-5 job. There are nights and weekends and holidays. It’s rewarding but it takes a toll. Later that year, Jennifer and I were the parents of a young baby. We had moved back to Collinsville, and I needed a job. I was a few semesters shy of finishing a journalism degree, so I put together a resume and sent it to all the local papers. Mr. Wood was the first to call.
We met and he offered me a job. I’d be the sports reporter for the Whitesboro News-Record. I remember, in the interview, he asked if I had any work samples.
“Go back to your archives and start in fall 1995,” I said. “You can find all sorts of samples of my work between then and now.” I don’t think he ever did and hired me anyway. I worked at the News-Record, for Scott, off and on for the next 13 years. I’d leave for a promotion somewhere else only to get recruited back a little later with a promotion here. We moved back to the area for good in 2013.
A year and a half later, Jennifer was tired of renting and started looking at the housing market. She found a listing on Dewitt Street in Collinsville. One look at the exterior photo and front yard and she said, “I want this. Do you know this house?” she asked.
“Sure do,” I said. “It belongs to Jimmy Davison.” Jim and Xina had purchased her mother’s house prior to retirement. It was a large home with dormer windows and wrap-around porch and Jennifer was in love. We bought it.
Xina passed away in 2016.
I left the News-Record for what I thought would be the last time in the fall of 2021. But life, again, had a way of being serendipitous. Mr. Wood called last spring and Jennifer and I closed our purchase of the newspaper in June 2023— as Whitesboro was celebrating its 150th birthday— 50 years to the month after Jim and Xina purchased the paper. All this to say, our lives have intersected with the Davisons’ in countless ways.
Rhett and Clint were good friends of mine growing up. Jim was my first newspaper boss. We bought Mrs. Landers’ house from them. But Jim and I found the most common ground in both having been publishers of the Whitesboro News-Record than in anything else.
Very few people understand what it takes to do this job— the thick skin from criticism over typos and unpopular opinions. Caring more about the weekly product than any employee ever could. How the embarrassment of occasionally getting something wrong always stings much more than the pride of often getting it right. Jim understood all this, and we talked about it often.
If I ever needed some historical background about the newspaper— or anything local— he was the guy I called. I will miss that.
I needed to be sure I had plenty of time when I called Jim. He loved to talk. Jennifer says I do too though, and we’d be on the phone for more than an hour. Jim was a voice of reason and practicality. He came from another time when newspapermen always had a pack of smokes in their shirt pocket and a reporter’s notebook in their back pocket.
He was an old-school liberal— a Blue Dog Democrat in the vein of John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Ann Richards. Ralph Hall changed political parties in 2000 along with most of North Texas, but Jim Davison never did. He stuck to his convictions and I always respected that of him. He loved to discuss and debate the issues— always civilly. His approach was always practical.
“I’m all for mandatory voter ID,” he once told me. “As long as those mandatory IDs are provided from the state free of charge. Otherwise, it’s just a poll tax.”
Made sense to me.
I last saw Jim right before Christmas. He popped in the office with several bags full of bananas. I’m not sure where he got them, but he had plenty and wanted to share. I obliged and we talked about the changes Jennifer and I have in store for his old building. He had grown his hair out the way some old men do when they no longer care for regular trips to the barbershop. Or maybe it’s a way for baby boomers— the hippie generation— to reclaim their youth, but his hair was near his shoulders.
It was a striking difference for a man who maintained flat tops for much of his adult life. I also noticed that he couldn’t stand for very long. He had to sit down to talk. He sank into the loveseat at our front desk, and I had to help him out of it when he left. He had aged, but I guess I didn’t realize just how much.
I don’t regret having to tear myself away from him in order to get out the door. I was running late to a One Act Play competition and he wanted to talk. Finally, I said, “Jim I hate to be rude, but I have got to get out of here. There are a bunch of kids in Gainesville expecting us to bring them lunch and they will be looking for me.” He was still making his way out the front door when I hit the back door. I ended up being 10 minutes late.
I do regret, however, that that was the last time I saw him. I regret not following up on the promise to bring him some homemade banana bread from the fruit he gave me. He asked how his old pecan trees were doing. I told him it was a great year and that I’d bring him some as soon as I got them cracked. I regret getting busy and not following up on that too.
When I learned of Jim’s passing last Wednesday, I couldn’t help but think of the people I grew up around at the newspaper office who aren’t here anymore. Jim, Xina, Audrey Proffitt, Jean Woods, my grandmother, the list goes on— it’s staggering.
I also couldn’t help but feel refortified by the responsibly at hand. Jennifer and I assumed a great legacy when we purchased the News-Record. That is not lost on us.
Jim Davison was a man who loved his community, took care of his family and poured into his friends. I am blessed to have been one of those friends. For that, I’ll be forever grateful.