Star...local beacon for 80 years
By Darla Bracken
Back in the 1930s the Friona Star office shared this building with the post office. The building was located on So. Main. The Friona Star sign is barely visible in the lower left front window.
courtesy photo
From the Sept. 20, 1956 50TH Anniversary Edition “To the Friona Star: MAY IT LIVE FOREVER, AND MAY ITS RAYS EVER BRIGHTEN THE LIVES AND QUICKEN THE SPIRITS OF ITS READERS.”
Born as a suggestion by John W. “Uncle John” White, secretary the Chamber of Commerce in June1925, soon the need for a local newspaper became a reality. (Although the first newspaper effort the Friona Sentinel was published by S. A. Harris in 1916, no other history or copies of the Sentinel exist of which we know.) Offers of a salary of “not less than $50” per week were advertised for the editor/manager of the newspaper in 1925. The name “Star” was a suggestion by A.W. Henschel, who at the time was president of the Friona State Bank.
Upon deciding that an “outsider” might be tempted to just pick up and leave, the duty of editor was assigned to Mr. John White with the revenues to be used to pay him. Eight days later the first copy of the Friona Star was printed at Clovis, New Mexico with a Friday publication date at a cost of 5 cents per copy. After 15 months of operation and with a list of 300 subscribers and most of the local businesses as advertisers, the Star was sold to the Hereford Brand/ Seth Holman and then later to Nunn-Warren Publishing owner of the Amarillo Daily News and some 20 other newspapers.
The January 16, 1931 issue urged everyone in Parmer County, particularly farm families to subscribe to the Friona Star. In lieu of the $1.50 cash for a one year subscription the following offer was made: “If you don’t have the cash, bring in six dozen eggs and we will take them instead of money.” The offer was limited to Parmer County.
By 1936, after this period of ‘outside’ ownership, White became sole owner/editor of the newspaper until the paper again was sold to the Hereford Brand in 1940. White was associated with the Star in some capacity for 25 years. Improvements under the Nunn-Warren Press. Co. included a good Ben Franklin new press, a good Chandler & Price job press, a good Mentges folder and goodly amount of both body and job type. After the dissolution of the company during the Nunn-Warren Press years, the Star’s 300 subscriber list dwindled down to 92 and advertisers to 2.
By 1950 Bert Neelley bought the Star and sold it in 1956 to Joe Osborn and W. H. Graham of Farwell. Osborn and Graham bought an offset printing plant to print the Friona Star, The Bovina Blade and the Farwell State Line Tribune. The plant was the first of its kind between Ft. Worth and Denver and Osborn and Graham were among the pioneers in this area. In 1958 the Friona Star had the honor to be the first newspaper to be printed by the offset process in West Texas. Many other innovations and firsts grace the Star’s history.
Award winning: The Star has quite an award winning history with General Excellence, and the distinguished “Community Service Award” along with numerous other trophies and awards over the years. The Star was located mostly on Main, but also on 6thStreet 1957-1963, then at 614 Euclid and since 1968, at 916 Main. Editor/Publishers have included: John White 25 years, Bert Neelley 6 years, Osborn/Graham, 12 years, Bill Ellis 40 years and currently Ron Carr. The star has changed owners 9 times in its 80-year history.
*”Uncle John” was given this nickname because he wrote to every local boy in the service in World War II and signed his letters that way.
Prairie Progress c. 1981, 50th Anniversary Edition Friona Star Sept. 20, 1956; Friona Star Dec. 1981
