Friends of the Texan

04/30/2026

Public media under fire at UT-Austin, forcing last-minute down-sizing and relocation of inaugural festival by K*T-FM. Read K*T's response below.

In a point-by-point rebuttal to the university's general counsel, K*T Public Media General Manager Debbie Hiott provided dates where university officials had signed off on the festival plans.

04/29/2026

S. Griffin “Griff” Singer — devoted husband, father, grandfather, teacher, mentor, caregiver and friend — died March 25, 2026, at the age of 93 following a brief battle with cancer.
A celebration of life is set for May 29 in Austin at Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Home, 5416 Parkcrest Drive. Visitation with family will start at 10 a.m., followed by a service at 11 o’clock and reception at noon. In lieu of flowers, please consider a contribution to:
The Friends of the Daily Texan Griff Singer Fund;
The S. Griffin Singer Endowed Professorship; or
The S. Griffin Singer Student Support Endowment.
Griff is survived by daughter Cathy Becker and her husband Clay, son Mark Singer and his wife Tricia, and stepson Michael Selby and his wife Kathryn. He also leaves behind granddaughters Siena Singer, Brynn Selby and Paige Diehl, along with his extended family and vast network of friends, and former colleagues and students. Griff was preceded in death by wives Patricia McGuire Singer and Evelyn Carleton Singer.
Griff was born September 27, 1932, at Dallas Methodist Hospital, the son of Martha Janette Griffin Singer and Sidney Arthur Singer. He lived in the same Oak Cliff house all his life until enrolling at the University of Texas at Austin in 1952. He graduated from Sunset High School, where he was elected to the National Honor Society and lettered in football. His interest in journalism started while at Sunset as sports editor of the student newspaper.
Over the past 70-plus years, Griff had been a printer, reporter, editor, teacher and newspaper consultant. And even though he retired in 2003 after 34 years of working, he stayed active in journalism until his death. He earned Bachelor of Journalism and Master of Arts in Communication degrees, both from UT Austin.

In his teaching career, all at UT, Griff taught courses in reporting, copyediting, and newspaper layout and design. He made the transition from hot type to computers to digital during that time, and organized and team-taught the first offering of computer-assisted reporting and later sports reporting. While an undergraduate student at UT, he was a reporter and editor for The Daily Texan by day and printer in the composing room at night.
His first journalism job after serving his Army Reserve commitment as a Military Police second lieutenant was news editor at the Arlington (Texas) Citizen-Journal. After office basic training at Fort Gordon, Georgia, Griff was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. But a long-time goal was to work for his hometown paper, The Dallas Morning News. He was offered a job as a general assignment reporter at The News in 1959. His assignments grew into covering county government and civil and criminal courts, and in early 1961 he was named an assistant city editor. Among his career highlights were helping direct coverage of the assassination of President John Kennedy and the ensuing investigation and the trial of Jack Ruby for the slaying of Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy’s assassin.
Griff stayed with The News until 1967, when he returned to UT and Austin to teach in the School of Journalism and Media. With the retirement of Norris Davis as chair of the school in 1976, he served a year as acting chair. Griff then served as assistant chair to the late Dwight Teeter for two years. In 1979, he was recruited to be city editor and later assistant managing editor at the San Antonio Light. He returned to UT in 1981, and continued teaching and performing administrative duties in the School of Journalism and Media.
Griff participated in countless seminars and workshops conducted for state, regional and national journalism organizations — the National and Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association, the Texas Press Association and its regional groups and the Society of Professional Journalists. He judged many state and national journalism competitions, and in 1993 was one of 13 jurors selected for the international competition of the Society of News Design.

For 17 summers, beginning in 1987, he was an assistant metro editor and newsroom consultant at the Houston Chronicle.

Griff also consulted with Freedom Communications, Inc., a California-based corporation that at the time had 26 daily newspapers. In 1996, he was a copy editor on the Olympics Daily published by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution during the 1996 Summer Olympics and in 1994 was on the first team of Western journalists to go to the former Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan to work with Russian-trained journalists in adapting to a free press.

The Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association in 1998 cited Griff for his service to journalism in Texas by presenting him with the Jack Douglas Award that honors a former editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In 2003, he was awarded the title of “Wirehandler for Life,” for his many years of taking part in the annual Texas Associated Press Workshops for editors and copy editors.

Griff’s former students in 2000 honored him greatly, establishing two endowed grants to the UT School of Journalism and Media: The S. Griffin Singer Endowed Professorship and the S. Griffin Singer Student Support Endowment, which annually provides two scholarships to UT journalism students.

The South Texas Press Association in 2010 named its general excellence award The S. Griffin Singer General Excellence Award, noting his continued call for improvements in community journalism.
In 2016 he was inducted into the Texas Newspaper Foundation Hall of Fame, and two years later, he was inducted into the Friends of The Daily Texan Hall of Fame. That same year, former students, colleagues and friends established a fund creating the Griff and Evelyn Singer Foyer on the third floor of the Dealey Center for New Media on the UT campus.
In addition, the Friends of The Daily Texan board established a scholarship in his honor in 2020, and that fund continues to grow and provide additional support to Texan staffers each year. Griff was a long-time board member of Friends of The Daily Texan, and was actively involved in supporting the Friends and Daily Texan journalists.

04/13/2026

https://friendsofthedailytexan.org/.../sponsor-a-student.../
Not able to attend the Friends of The Daily Texan Hall of Fame event April 17 on the University of Texas campus but still want to support The Texan and its student journalists? Please consider sponsoring a Daily Texan student journalist to attend.
And, even if you are able to attend, please consider sponsoring a student for only $75.
Registration for the event is now open at this link to select your ticket and/or make a donation to sponsor a student:
https://friendsdailytexan.wildapricot.org/event-6522425
All Daily Texan staff members are invited to attend – at no charge – but your donation helps defray the costs of meals and other expenses for the student journalists. This year’s event will be dedicated to beloved educator and outstanding journalist Griff Singer and will include a tribute video and slideshow in his honor.
In addition, attendees will hear from Interim Dean of Moody College of Communication Anita Vangelisti, will meet the 16 Texan staffers who will receive scholarship grants this year, hear a report from current Texan senior editors and learn more about the 3 Rising Star winners and 8 Hall of Fame members in the class of 2026.

03/27/2026

Memorial services are pending for Griff Singer. Here is a link to info about Griff and his career.
The Friends of The Texan will pass along more information when it is available regarding memorial services, and where to send sympathy cards, etc.

Here is a link to his obituary:

Memorial services are pending for S. Griffin Singer, a towering figure in Texas journalism education, who mentored generations of reporters and editors at the University of Texas at Austin. He died at the age of 93 on Wednesday, March 25. Singer, who spent more than three decades on the university.....

03/25/2026

Griff is gone.

We wanted you to be aware that Griff died shortly before 2 o'clock this morning while still in intensive care.

Thank you for rallying all of the amazing prayers and incredible support throughout his cancer journey. You will never know how much they lifted both his spirits and ours.

We will be back in touch regarding memorial service details.

Mark & Cathy

03/20/2026

Update on condition of Griff Singer

Griff Singer suffers setback; now in intensive care
We are frustrated to report that our father, Griff, has recently suffered a significant setback in his cancer treatment and recovery.
Only a few days after transitioning to assisted living and receiving his second round of chemotherapy, Dad was found unresponsive early Monday morning. He was immediately transported to the emergency room and diagnosed with a severe bacterial infection that doctors thought might take his life. He has been in the intensive care unit since.
Fortunately, strong antibiotics and a great medical team have helped fight back the infection. Griff is also receiving occupational and physical therapy in hopes of restoring his activity and strength. He will be moved to a regular room once his blood pressure has steadied.
We are not sure where the road will take us from here, but continue to welcome your support and prayers.
Mark Singer & Catherine Singer Becker

03/13/2026

Meet Martin L.’Red’ Gibson, 2026 The Daily Texan Hall of Fame honoree
The red-haired and freckled Martin L. Gibson started life in Colorado City, Texas, where he spent summers chopping and picking cotton, driving trucks and mixing mortar for a bricklayer before graduating from high school there. He also picked up the nickname “Red,” which would stick with him all through his life.
Best known for his work in journalism education at the University of Texas, he was equally at home in a metropolitan newsroom or the hospitality suite of a press association convention.
Martin L. “Red” Gibson was honored in 2014 by his induction into the Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame, the first journalism educator to receive this recognition.
He will be inducted into the Friends of The Daily Texan Hall of Fame, as recipient of the Griff Singer Award, on April 17.
Gibson’s work experience included stints with the Austin American-Statesman, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Houston Chronicle and the Galveston Daily News.
As a University of Texas at Austin professor of journalism, he taught a number of students who themselves would become publishers and leaders in the Texas newspaper industry. During his 24 years of teaching, he developed into one of the best friends of community journalists across Texas. Along with UT colleagues Mike Quinn and Griff Singer, he conducted numerous state and regional workshops for newspaper associations. The books he wrote on journalism became bibles for editors.
Gibson attended Texas Western College in El Paso and the U.S. Naval Academy where, he explained, calculus stymied him. In 1955 he earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from North Texas State College in Denton, now the University of North Texas.
After covering sports at the Galveston Daily News for a year, he joined the U.S. Army and edited a newspaper for the 10th Infantry Division in Wurzburg, Germany. In 1959, he earned a master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern University while working on the copy desk at the Chicago Tribune.
The Houston Chronicle hired him as a copy editor in 1960. By 1965 he was night editor, but he left to teach journalism at the University of North Texas in Denton. He joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 1969 and earned his doctorate there in 1973.
He held the university’s Philip G. Warner Regents Professorship in Communication.
In 1981 he became the first recipient of the American Press Institute’s Ottaway Fellowship for consulting and teaching and in 1982 he won a Fulbright award to teach and critique newspapers in New Zealand.
His column, “Black and White and Red All Over” was published by Texas Press Association and he wrote a column, “The Newspaper Tuner,” for the Freedom Newspapers group.
He wrote the widely used journalism textbooks “Editing in the Electronic Era” and “The Writer’s Friend” and he conducted journalism workshops in nine states and two provinces of Canada.
Gibson also served terms as president of the Gulf Coast and Texas chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Soon after his death in 1993 at age 59, Gibson was remembered by his colleague Dr. Wayne Danielson of the UT Department of Journalism.
“Red liked to work surrounded by stacks and stacks of paper — newspapers, letters, old class notes, exams, stories written by students, book chapters he was editing,” Danielson wrote.
“He liked to have words around him at all times. He was comfortable with words and words comforted him.”
Gibson served multiple terms and countless hour two decades on the then Texas Student Publications (now TSM) board as a faculty representative. He, along with Griff Singer, provided workshops for Texan staffers as well as offering advice based on their many years of professional experience and continuing relationships with newspapers across Texas and other parts of the country.
From Texas Newspaper Foundation Hall of Fame, Class of 2014

03/13/2026

Meet John R. Erickson, 2026 The Daily Texan Hall of Fame honoree
John R. Erickson will publish his 84th book this year with more than 10 million book sales, and is best known as the author of the Hank the Cowdog series of books, audio-books and stage plays.

He started Maverick Books more than 40 years ago and was inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame in 2022.
n addition, in 2020, Austin filmmaker Jeff Nichols produced a podcast of one of the Hank books, with character voices by Matthew McConaughey, Jesse Plemons, Cynthia Erivo, Kristen Dunst, Leslie Jordan, Joel Edgerton, Scoot McNairy, Michael Shannon, and John R. Erickson.

He has published more than 600 articles, and also is now publishing a weekly article series on Substack.

In 2024, the National Ranching Heritage Center opened its $10 million Hank-themed Ranch Life Learning Center on the campus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

His stories have won a number of awards, including the Audie, Oppenheimer, Wrangler, and Lamplighter Awards, and have been translated into Spanish, Danish, Farsi, and Chinese.

The Hank the Cowdog series began as a self-publishing venture in his garage in 1982 and has endured to become one of the nation’s most popular series for children and families. Through the eyes of Hank the Cowdog , a smelly, smart-aleck Head of Ranch Security, Erickson gives readers a glimpse of daily life on a ranch in the West Texas Panhandle. USA Today calls the series “the best family entertainment in years.”

John Richard Erickson was born in Midland, Texas, on October 20, 1943, to Joseph W. Erickson and Anna Beth Curry Erickson, the youngest of three children. In 1946, the family moved to Perryton, Texas, in the northeastern Texas Panhandle.

John started first grade in the Perryton school system and graduated from high school in the class of 1962. He has described himself as a lazy student and a reluctant reader. He ran track (high hurdles) and played varsity football, sang in the choir, played bassoon in the band and drums in the stage band and taught himself how to play the five-string banjo. He participated in speech events (debate and extemporaneous speaking), and played lead roles in several school plays.

His talent for writing went unnoticed until his senior year in high school, when his English teacher, Annie Love, made the class write an original poem. Erickson found that it was easy for him. For the rest of the year, he stayed up late at night, writing poems for Mrs. Love.
Erickson attended the University of Denver for a year, then finished his B.A. degree at the University of Texas in Austin. For two years, he studied theology at Harvard Divinity School and left three hours short of a master’s degree.

At UT, he met his future wife, Kristine Dykema, and they were married in Dallas in 1967.

He worked as editorial columnist on The Daily Texan in 1965-66.

During the years 1974-1981, John worked as a ranch cowboy in Oklahoma and Texas. There, he found a balance between hard physical work and the intense, concentrated effort of writing four hours every day. He wrote novels, short stories, articles, plays, essays, and book reviews. When he sent them off to publishers, most came back with rejection slips.

In 1982, after fifteen years of failure and frustration, he and Kris started their own publishing company, Maverick Books, in their garage in Perryton, and brought out the first Hank the Cowdog book in 1983.
Today, more than 30 years after its modest beginnings, Maverick Books is once again Hank’s official publisher, and is still located in Erickson’s hometown of Perryton. Publishers Weekly calls the Hank the Cowdog series a “grassroots publishing phenomena,” and, to date, the series has sold over 9 million copies.

From the start, John intended for the Hank stories to be read aloud, and one of the unique features of the series is that he has recorded all stories in the audio-book format, performing all the character voices himself and composing two original songs for each episode.

For more than thirty years, Erickson has worked hard to maintain the highest standards of good, wholesome family entertainment. In doing that, he has built a bond of trust with parents, librarians, and teachers, and all his stories have been approved for the Accelerated Reader Program. He has appeared in thousands of schools, from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Key West, Florida, and has been a popular speaker at conventions of teachers, librarians, and homeschoolers. And, in 2019, John was inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame.

John and Kris live on their cattle ranch near Perryton, Texas, and stay in touch with the world through the Official Hank Website www.hankthecowdog.com.

03/13/2026

Meet Oscar Griffin Jr., 2026 The Daily Texan Hall of Fame honoree
Oscar O’Neal Griffin Jr. started his career with a journalism degree from the University of Texas, where he was a copyreader at The Daily Texan.
But a few short years later he broke open a massive scandal in West Texas, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1963.
Griffin won the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting as editor at the Independent and Enterprise, for directing its investigation of the fraud scandal involving Billie Sol Estates in 1962.
Griffin was born in Daisetta, Texas and obtained his degree from the UT in 1958.
Griffin won the Pulitzer while he was the editor of the Pecos Independent and Enterprise. During his time here, he was a reporter and editor. Prior to that time, he served in the Army in the 1950s. After graduating from the UT he worked at a number of small newspapers before his stint at the Independent and Enterprise.
After finishing his degree, Griffin worked at several small newspapers before becoming editor (and de facto reporter) at the weekly/semiweekly paper Pecos Independent and Enterprise in Pecos, Texas.
Over the course of the series, Griffin exposed how the “fertilizer tanks” used as collateral often didn’t exist — and how Estes had been using the same tanks, serial numbers and paperwork repeatedly to secure more and more loans, exploiting the inability of lenders to physically verify them.
The articles triggered widespread attention: federal investigators, banks, and the FBI descended on Pecos; broader scrutiny was applied to Estes’s operations, his land and cotton-subsidy schemes, and his political connections.

Ten days after the final article (March 1962), Estes was arrested by the FBI.
Thus, what began as small-town newspaper reporting became a national scandal — the fraudulent empire of a major wheeler-dealer collapsed, triggering prosecutions and sweeping consequences.
For this remarkable reporting, Griffin won the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. The Pulitzer committee cited him “for initiating exposure of the Billie Sol Estes scandal and thereby bringing a major fraud on the United States government to national attention with resultant investigation, prosecution and conviction of Estes.”
Griffin’s work is often held up as a classic example of small-town investigative journalism that triggered national consequences — showing that even a modest local paper can uncover corruption affecting the federal government.
His reporting helped bring down a massive fraud scheme that had exploited government programs and deceived banks, investors and farmers.
The scandal surrounding Bill­ie Sol Estes ultimately prompted broader scrutiny of agricultural subsidies, loan practices, and related political corruption — illustrating how journalism can enforce accountability even in powerful economic and political arenas.
Griffin’s Pulitzer win in 1963 stands as a testament to the power of careful, determined reporting, especially in a time when verification was harder (no internet, no digital databases).

03/13/2026

Meet Jan Sonnenmair, 2026 The Daily Texan Hall of Fame honoree
Jan Sonnenmair is an award winning photojournalist, documentary filmmaker and educator.
She is known for creating life stories and images that speak to the heart of her subjects.
Her love of people and experience photographing life’s joys and hardships, gives her a sensitive eye and unique ability to create a comfortable working relationship with the people she photographs.
In addition to starting her career on the photography staff of the Dallas Morning News, she has photographed around the world for magazines and corporations.
Jan has been the recipient of several awards including the World Press Foundations’ award for Photo Essay for a four-year long project on a child with AIDS.
Jan was honored to be selected as a Knight Fellow at Ohio University. There she received her Master’s Degree in visual communications as well as began teaching college classes as a complement to her work as a photographer.
Her documentary film “Between the Lines: Photojournalism in the Crossfire” chronicles photojournalists covering the civil unrest in Portland, Oregon in 2020 and was honored at several film festivals including The Toronto International Women’s Film Festival and the Austin International Art Festival
She is currently traveling the USA in her RV with her labrador, Xochi, while documenting current events in the country.