The Loss of a Newspaper

Terry Clark wrote about the The Temple Tribune this summer in The Oklahoma Publisher, the monthly publication of the Oklahoma Press Association. Terry cares a lot about the future of newspapers. In fact he is quoted in an article on the topic in the Oklahoma Gazette. He recognizes the important role newspapers play in people's lives and in maintaining freedom.

I wrote to Terry a while back about The Tribune in hopes he could help us find an editor/publisher to keep the paper going. He was familiar with Temple and the old Temple Tribune. Terry used to live in Waurika and occasionally preached at the Temple Church of Christ. He even remembered when the original The Tribune died in the 1970s.

In his recent column, Terry told his readers the story of our attempt to revive The Tribune. Our newspaper lasted 36 issues. We quit publishing it May 1 of this year. I hear from a lot of people who enjoyed and miss getting the newspaper every week.

An update on The Temple Tribune: stockholders donated controlling stock to the Temple Museum Association. Tribune hardware, software, mailing list and all the information about what we’ve done are available for someone willing to try to publish the newspaper again. It could be a rewarding project for a retired couple wanting a challenging job and to escape city traffic. And I would sell them a fine 1906 Victorian house in Temple, a quaint country town in southwest Oklahoma.

Terry also provided a lesson on diagramming sentences as we continued our written dialogue about writing. I once thought of forming an organization for ending and eliminating repetition and redundancy in writing and literature, but never began nor started the project or the work. (I became sidelined and put off an idea to run for President of the United States on the platform to make all highways between cities and town run downhill. Think of the fuel that would save.)

Harold Powell