The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 179, Ed. 1 Sunday, May 28, 1989 Page: 8 of 26
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8-A
THE BAYTOWN SUN
Sundny, May 28, 1989
iillliPiiiiillllliiilll
Methodist
When it comes to recovery,
there’s no place like home*
SHORTSTOP BRL
base and prepares
complete a second
strong defensive e
dlnals.
Falcon
volleyl
;'John Turner, wl
nelview to a secom
ip the 1988 Class 4A
ment, has been
volleyball coach ;
Lee.
• Turner’s appoir
the void created
Idylor left the po
this year due to hea
Turney, who
coaching since 1984
109-39 record, incl
mark in district cc
graduate of Lama
he began his caret
swood before mov
nelview in 1985.
Since taking ov<
nelview program,
developed the Lady
a perennial playoff
first two years, the;
regional semifinals
third at the state t<
1987.
In the most rec
tourney, Channeh
Dumas 17-15, 15-4
Expos si
IjkJike Virden, an c
the past two season
lege, accepted a c
the Montreal Expos
Friday.
Virden was drafts
pos in the late st;
June’s free-agent
week he decided to
treal’s offer rather t
Hartman enjoys everything about newspaper business
By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press
Back in the 1930s when the southeast Texas com-
munity of Baytown was known as Goose Creek,
Fred Hartman would ride from home on his bicy-
cle to a ferry boat across the Houston Ship Channel
and then hitchhike to his job as a sports writer at a
2,500-circulation newspaper called the Sun.
A half-century later, Hartman is the publisher
emeritus of the 20,000-circulation Baytown Sun and
can look back at a career that includes stints on the
Lamar University board of regents, Battleship
Texas Commission, Texas Library Board, Texas
Air Control Board and numerous local panels.
The name ‘‘Fred Hartman” will be affixed to the
$92 million bridge now being built across the same
channel Hartman first crossed as a rookie
reporter.
“That ain’t bad for a beat-up old sports writer,”
Hartman, who turned 81 on May 20, said in a recent
interview. “And I belong to the school of thought
that nothing ought to be named for someone who is
living.”
Hartman’s goal is to be the first one to take a trip
over the bridge when it opens in a couple of years.
From his Baytown base and through an associa-
tion with legendary newspaper entrepreneur Car-
mage Walls, Hartman helped assemble Southern
Newspapers Inc., a group of newspapers that
blanketed the Texas Gulf Coast area and beyond.
The association led to a friendship with Walls that
endures to this day.
Hartman eventually formed his own newspaper
group and only recently divested himself of the last
daily newspaper in the organization, the Port
Lavaca Wave in Calhoun County. And although
hardly a hostile takeover, Hartman himself par-
ticipated in the negotiations that led to the sale of
the Wave to his son Bill’s newspaper company.
“There’s going to be a tremendous industrial
boom,” he says of the Port Lavaca area, where a
Chinese firm is planning to build a billion-dollar
manufacturing plant. “At my age, I just didn’t
care to get back in the swing. ’ ’
For the white-haired, quick-witted Hartman,
with his ever-present bow tie, the swing began in
Springfield, Mo., in the 1920s, when a high school
printing class planted the first newspaper ink on
FRED HARTMAN, who turned 81 on May 20, says,
“I had an end-zone seat in Baytown, Texas. I
elected to stay here and was never sorry. ’ ’
his fingernails. Although neither his mother nor
father finished high school, his mother insisted he
attend Baylor University.
He graduated in 1929 after surviving a boot out of
school for smuggling moonshine into his dorm
room. One of his co-conspirators in that incident
was future Texas Gov. Price Daniel. Two years
later Hartman had his master’s in journalism and
in the depths of the Depression took a job in La
Porte for News Publishing Co., which put out six
weekly Harris County newspapers.
He joined The Sun in 1935 “as a sports writer in
the morning and circulation manager in the after-
noon,” he says. By 1944, he was editor and six
years later publisher and president when the paper
was sold.
“I was kind of like the furniture,” he says,
laughing in his self-deprecating manner. “I was
part of the deal.”
His ticket through the newspaper management
ranks was sports.
“I have had an obsession for sports and pursued
the hell out of it,” he says. “The newspaper
business has been so much fun. Everybody indulg-
ed me in this sports writing crap.”
The seeds for his love of sports were planted in
the 1910s when the New York Giants baseball team
had its spring training base in his hometown of
Marlin. Years later his favorite player was
Frankie Frisch.
Hartman used to cover the minor league
baseball Houston Buffs. Then he watched the
Houston Colt ,45s become the Houston Astros and
the Astrodome rise from the prairie. Only recently
he fulfilled a lifelong ambition by attending a
Harvard-Yale football game at Cambridge, Mass.
Asked to compare ball players of different eras,
he replies, “I find them a lot younger than I used
to.”
He also finds sports writing and newspapers in
general better than ever, although he thinks
reporters spend too much time getting quotes from
20-year-old ball players and he believes readers
are getting tired of sports labor problems and
scandals.
“The game itself is getting lost,” he says. “But
compared to the writing now, the writing then
stunk. It’s so much better now.”
He’s the only surviving original member of the
Houston chapter of the Baseball Writers Associa-
tion of America.
“Some guys play golf. Some guys go fishing.
Some guys beat their wives. I guess the highest
honor I’ve ever received is that the Houston sports
writers trusted me to be their treasurer,” he says.
“But there was no part of the newspaper business I
didn’t enjoy.”
He had his chances to work for bigger
newspapers but opted to stay with what he calls
community newspapers. J- <
“I had an end-zone seat in Baytown, Texas,” he
likes to say. “I elected to stay here and was never
sorry. We’re living in an age of specialization, but
my contention is there is a specialization in small-
Honors double up
for police officer
Glen Athey, who is the Bay-
town Chamber of Commerce’s
Law Enforcement Officer of the
Month for June, also is the reci-
pient of a letter of commenda-
tion from Chambers County
Sheriff C.E. Morris.
Morris noted that Athey was
traveling south on Highway 146
at about 8 p.m. March 16 when
he saw a vehicle on fire at Wood-
, land Academy.
“He observed an elderly white
male in the vehicle,” Morris con-
tinued. “Officer Athey com-
pletely disregarded his own per-
sonal safety at considerable risk
to himself while attempting to
remove the occupant from the
vehicle.
“The occupant was mentally
confused and forcefully resisted
Athey’s attempts to rescue him.
The vehicle was engulfed in
flames causing the wooded area
nearby to ignite.
“Officer Athey persisted in his
efforts and physically removed
the occupant from ,the burning
vehicle.”
Morris said Athey rendered
“psychological first aid” to the
victim until the Mont Belvieu
EMS and Chambers County
Sheriff units arrived.
“Officer Athey’s response to a
potential life-threatening situa-
tion reflects quality in training,”
Morris said.
“His persisting efforts are evi-
dent of his own competence and
moral courage. Those actions of
Officer Athey reflect the quality
of your department, his own pro-
fessionalism and courage.”
Athey has been employed in
the city’s police department for
one year and four months. He
has 10 years of law enforcement
experience, having previously
worked with the Skogit County
Sheriff’s Office in Washington
State and the Las Cruces Police
Department in Las Cruces, N.M.
He served four years in the
U.S. Air Force and was awarded
the Airman’s Medal for Valor,
one of the highest peacetime
awards given.
A native of Colorado Springs,
Colo., Athey received his
associate of arts degree in police
science from New Mexico State
University.
He has two children, Scott, 5,
and Lorie, 3.
As Officer of the Month, Athey
will have the use of a reserved
parking space at the police sta-
tion throughout June.
Awarded a plaque at a recent
Baytown Chamber of Commerce
lunchddn, he also received gift
certificates from Longhorn Cafe
and The Galley Restaurant.
Nominations and selections
‘We’re living in an age of
specialization, but my conten-
tion is there is a specialization
in small-town newspapers —
and that’s versatility. Nothing
aggravates me more than a
sports writer who can’t write
an obit. ”
town newspapers — and that’s versatility. Nothing
aggravates me more than a sports writer who
can’t write an obit.”
Of his two children, son Bill, operates his own
newspaper group headquartered in Rosenberg. A
grandson, Fred, is a reporter at the Herald Coaster
in Rosenberg.
Hartman’s daughter, Mary, is married to
Baytown Sun publisher Leon Brown.
When Hartman retired in 1983 on his 75th birth-
day, among his pupils were 35 active publishers,
including 27 in Texas.
The idea for naming the new bridge over the
Houston Ship Channel for Hartman was pushed by
former Texas Highway Commission Chairman
Robert Lanier, who worked for Hartman at The
Sun as a sports writer and in the circulation
department while attending high school &
Baytown.
Lanier says putting Hartman’s name on the
structure gave him great pleasure, and the action
also was accepted warmly by the highway com-
mission and the Harris County Commissioners
Court.
“I don’t have anything but nice recollections
about him and nice things to say about him, and in
that regard I’m no different from anybody else
that’s known him,” says Lanier. “I’ve known hlnj
almost 50 years and I have yet to hear any adverse
word about him.
“And that’s pretty remarkable to be in the public
eye for that long and to be so universally well
thought of.” '
GLEN ATHEY, second from ngni, is the Baytown Nelson, Police Chief Wayne Henscey and Sherman
Chamber of Commerce’s Law Enforcement Of- Glass, right, chairman of the board of the Baytown
fleer of the Month for June. On hand to con- Chamber of Commerce,
gratulate him are Chamber County Judge Oscar (Sun staff photo by Angle Bracey)
for this honor are based on an
officer’s overall performance
and not any single incident, ex-
plained Tracey Wheeler, presi-
dent of the Chamber of Com-
“The traits characterizing an
officer’s performance are loyal-
ty, dependability, initiative,
appearance, attitude, quality of
performance and care of equip-
ment.”
Ms. Wheeler added, “We are
proud of the individuals repre-
senting us in the our Baytown
Police Department. The Bay-
town Chamber feels that the law
enforcement officers in Baytown
provide outstanding service to
our community, not only in their
day-to-day jobs but as reponsible
citizens in our community.”
Ex-Sun sports
editor winner :
of top award
Former Sun sports editpr
Michael P. Mann, now a sports
writer for The Avalanche-Jour-
nal in Lubbock, has been named
Sports Writer of the Year by the
Texas Association of Basketball
Coaches for the second consecu-
tive year.
Mann accept-
ed the award at
a recent lunch-
eon in San An-
tonio.
Mann, who
covers area
high school ath-
letics, has won
the honor three
times in the last MICHAELItANN
four years.
“It’s obviously a great honor
to win this award, especially two
years in a row,” Mann said. “I
think it’s indicative of the hard
work by our entire staff and the
cooperation of the basketball
coaches in our area.”
Mann came to The Avalanche-
Journal five years ago.
Son of Pat and Nancy Mann of
Baytown, he is a graduate of
Robert E. Lee High School and
Rice University.
He started to work at The Sun
when he was in high school. He
also worked for the Associated
Press.
By MIKES
If Bruce Pai
doubts about his 1
squad being a te
they were laid to i
Down to Bellaii
ing into the botto;
inning, the Ran
with two runs in tl
and pulled out a
Winnie Brown Fi
berth in next wei
finals against
Dulles.
Dulles will hosl
day at 7 p.m., w
game set for Winr
Tuesday at 5 p.
game is needed, ii
Saturday at 2 f
Ryan Field in Alvi
A team of desl
Paulus said.
“There’s no dc
theRSS coach sai
we were meant
that next round.”
‘ The Rangers,
bullet-dodging ah
reaching the regi
the Cardinals
mounted threats
turned away by th
The final voile;
RSS when Bellair
ripped a two-out s
Of: the eighth ti
Stubbs for a 3-2 le
singled and stolen
Brian Gore be
eighth-inning rail
Rudy Hinojosa ft
moved to secom
San Jacinto Methodist Hospital. For
years, you’ve counted on us for the best
health care in Baytown. If you need nursing
attention after you leave the hospital, you
can continued that hospital-quality care
--in the comfort of your home.
• Because we’re Baytown’s only
hospital-based home health agency, we
can plan your treatment before you go
home. If you’re being discharged from
another hospital, we’ll begin work on your
case immediately after your physician’s
referral.
• Throughout your recovery, our
registered nurses and other medical
specialists will provide comprehensive,
convenient care according to your doctor’s
instructions________1—————-:
• We’re Medicare-certified, and we’ll
file your claims for you. For expenses
Medicare doesn’t cover, we’ll examine
your insurance policies and explain your ;
uninsured obligations in advance. -_______, 4
When it comes to health care, there's no
place like San Jacinto Methodist Hospital. .
When it comes to recovery, there’s no
place like home.
San Jacinto Methodist Hospital
Home Health Agency
1101 Decker Drive
Baytown, Texas 77520 *
(713) 420-8609 or 420-8600 '
■y'it* ---
*
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Brown, Leon. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 179, Ed. 1 Sunday, May 28, 1989, newspaper, May 28, 1989; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1052086/m1/8/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.