Two newspapermen with local ties will be honored this summer by the Texas Press Association for a combined 146 years in the business. Former News-Record staff writer Dan Eakin is set to receive the TPA Golden 50 Award at their summer convention June 22 in College Station.
The TPA Golden 50 Award honors Texas newspaper professionals who have served 50 years or more in the industry.
Eakin has logged 68 years in the newspaper business. He is a lifelong newspaper man. He began his career at the DeQueen Bee in his hometown of DeQueen, Arkansas when he was still in high school. He was a copy boy and typesetter.
Dan graduated high school in 1957. He has been an ordained minister about as long as he has been a newspaperman and has devoted his life to working at community newspapers and preaching at small rural churches— predominately in north and east Texas. Dan’s newspaper career has included stints in Texarkana, Lufkin, Tyler, Wichita Falls, the Dallas Morning News, Pilot Point, Polk County, Carrolton, Red Oak, Coppell and Canton, to name a few. Dan left the Whitesboro News-Record last year after almost a decade of service. He was also the longtime pastor of Collinsville Bible Baptist Church.
“I’ve always kept a job at a small church and a community newspaper,” Eakin said. “I’ve probably pastored at 30 different churches and worked at just as many different newspapers over the years. But I have always been intentional to keep the church and newspaper separate. I’m not Brother Dan at the office. I’m just Dan,” he said.
Dan was at the Lufkin News when it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1977. He covered the State Legislature for the Tyler Morning Telegraph in the 1970s and was dispatched to Washington D.C. to cover Jimmy Carter’s inauguration.
To date, Dan has either photographed or interviewed every Texas governor since John Connally. He owned and published East Texas Senior in the 1980s and early 90s— a niche publication that covered a dozen counties in the Piney Woods. At 84 years old, he is currently the editor of the Silsbee Bee.
In Cooke County, Alvin Hartman will also be honored by the TPA for his 78 years at the Muenster Enterprise. He went to work at the Enterprise shortly after his high school graduation in 1946. He has been there ever since.
A lifelong Muenster resident, he has done just about every job in the building at one point or another. He’s been a sportswriter, a composition man, a press man, the editor and even sold ads quite successfully back in the 70’s. He still clocks in a few hours a month to sweep the floor and run a few print jobs on an old Heidelberg press. He is the only person to ever run the Heidelberg. He took it out of the crate when his boss, Mr. Fette, bought it back in the early 50’s. Alvin has kept it running smooth with the same tool kit the manufacturer provided with it back then. When asked how much that press originally cost, Alvin said, “Well, Mr. Fette said he could have bought a new Heidelberg or a new Cadillac. He opted for the Heidelberg.”
Alvin has been a constant in the Muenster community. He and his wife Joan raised a wonderful family there. The Hartman roots run deep in Western Cooke County. Joan passed away last year.
Alvin is an alumni supporter of the Sacred Heart Tigers and served as team statistician for decades.
Both Eakin and Hartman were nominated for the honor by News-Record publisher Austin Lewter.
