Barbee succeeds father as Leader-News editor and publisher

ON THE RECORD: "During my father's illness and after his death, my wife Carol reminded me often to 'be your father's son.'" CHRIS BARBEE, Leader-News Publisher

Chris Barbee was promoted by company stockholders Oct. 4 to serve as editor and publisher of the El Campo Leader-News, Wharton Journal-Spectator and East Bernard Express, a position his late father, Fred V. Barbee Jr., held from July 1, 1968 until his death Oct. 2, 2007.

"To name Chris Barbee as editor and publisher of our three Wharton County newspapers gives Chris a title for the job he has been performing," A. Richard "Dick" Elam of Port Townsend, Wash., co-owner of the newspapers, said after making the announcement to employees last Wednesday.

"During the past two years Fred's health declined, reducing his time at the newspaper office to only a couple of days a week to proof stories after his wife, Peggy, took him to work," Elam said.

Upon their father's death, Chris' brother, David, and sister, Karon, became stockholders, Elam said. Karon Barbee, CPA, also serves as controller of the family-owned businesses.

"During my father's illness and after his death, my wife Carol reminded me often to 'be your father's son,' and to 'make your father proud.' I do appreciate the trust and faith that both he and Dick Elam have placed in me since I started at the Leader-News on Labor Day of 1974, and as manager of all the newspapers in February," Barbee said.

"With the help of our excellent staffs, it is my goal to take advantage of ever-changing technologies to give the citizens of Wharton County news and information with quality newspapers and Web sites, and to continue serving all the communities of this county," he added.

Fred and Eleanor Barbee moved to El Campo in May 1968 with their three children to co-own and operate the El Campo Leader-News & Svoboda, and Radio Station KULP, from El Campo resident and former state Sen. Culp Krueger.

Chris graduated from El Campo High School in 1970, and in May 1974 was awarded a bachelor of journalism degree from The University of Texas at Austin.

At the age of 15 he called in his first news story to his father at the Seminole Sentinel. He was visiting the University of Texas campus on Aug. 1, 1966 when Charles Whitman began killing and wounding people with rifle fire from his perch atop the UT Tower.

He later became a news, police beat and sports writer for The Daily Texan, the UT student newspaper. That is where he first met Leader- News columnist and KULP manager Jerry Aulds, who was a column writer for The Texan.

He returned to El Campo a few weeks after college graduation to become full-time sports editor for the Leader- News, a job F.D. "Smitty" Smith had held part-time for many years.

He quickly moved from sports to news to managing editor, working alongside his mother, who was the Lifestyle Section editor, and his father.

Eleanor Barbee died in October 1980. During her almost four-year illness, which often took his father away from the office during his wife's many stints at M.D. Anderson Hospital, the younger Barbee and the newspaper staff continued getting the paper out twice a week.

The National Newspaper Association awarded Barbee a travel fellowship to West Berlin, cities in East Germany and to the Czech Republic in May 1990, just six months after the Berlin Wall came down in Germany and the Velvet Revolution took place in Czechoslovakia.

He served as president of the Texas Gulf Coast Press Association, South Texas Press Association and the Texas Press Association.

Locally, Barbee was a charter member of the El Campo Museum Society board of directors and was a charter member of the BEEs; he served as a board member of the El Campo Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture, was on the organizational committee of the 100 Club of Wharton County and is an organizer of and past president of the West Wharton County Unit of the American Cancer Society.

He also served on the El Campo Memorial Hospital board of directors.

Barbee is an El Campo Rotarian, and he's a member and deacon at First Baptist Church of El Campo.

His wife, Carol, is an El Campo Middle School teacher. They have two children. Jonathan, 27, is a UT graduate with a BBA in finance who is currently working temporarily at the Wharton Journal- Spectator; and Julie Ann, 24, is a senior at Houston Baptist University double-majoring in marketing and TV broadcasting.