Barbee, publisher of Journal-Spectator, dies at 78
By CHRIS BARBEE cbarbee@leader-news.com

Fred V. Barbee Jr. published the Wharton Journal-Spectator, East Bernard Express and El Campo Leader-News.

Fred V. Barbee Jr., publisher of the El Campo Leader-News, Wharton Journal-Spectator and East Bernard Express, and former co-owner of Radio Station KULP, died early Tuesday. He would have been 79 on Oct. 28.

Barbee got his start in the newspaper business by throwing them - first the morning editions of the Fort Worth Star Telegram and later in the day, his hometown newspaper, the Brownwood Bulletin. It was 1940, and Fred was 12.

In no time at all, at age 13, he was promoted to "printer's devil" and janitor at the Bulletin, where his father, Fred Sr., was mechanical superintendent until his death in 1963.

After finishing Brownwood High, the young printer entered The University of Texas at Austin and earned a BBA in 1950. During his senior year, Barbee married his high school sweetheart, Eleanor McColl, a 1949 UT journalism graduate. They worked side-by-side at newspapers in Lamesa, Seminole, El Campo, Wharton, Edna and Ganado, and radio stations in Seminole and El Campo, until her death in 1980.

They also ran a job shop, El Campo Printing, for several years.

While at the university, Fred worked his way through school as a printer at the University Press, printing the Daily Texan five nights a week. The journeyman printer later also worked at the San Antonio Light.

Keeping an eye on Barbee's progress was his first employer, Brownwood publisher C.C. Woodson, who offered him the promise of a career in the business as a publisher. Barbee left Austin in 1952 to work for Woodson in the advertising department of the Miami (Okla.) News-Record for about three months to learn that end of the business.

Woodson, who became a lifelong friend and partner of Barbee's, brought the young newspaperman back to Texas to publish the six-day Lamesa Daily Reporter. Barbee was 23, and already an 11-year veteran in the newspaper business. He held the position in Lamesa until 1957.

From 1957 to 1968 he was publisher and co-owner with Woodson of the Seminole Sentinel. They also co-owned Radio Station KSML (later renamed KTFO) in Seminole from 1960 to 1968.

In 1968 Fred and Eleanor partnered with his UT roommate Dick Elam to buy the El Campo Leader-News and Radio Station KULP. The partners later bought the Wharton Journal-Spectator, Edna Herald and Ganado Tribune (Edna and Ganado sold in 1982), and most recently, the East Bernard Express, started by then Wharton J-S general manager and editor Larry Jackson in August 2003. The Barbees and Elam also introduced cable TV to El Campo back in the 1970s.

Fred married long-time friend Peggy Porterfield in 1981, and she was on board when Fred and Elam brought a newspaper frontend system to the U.S. from Australia.

Elam, while working as a professor and assistant dean in the College of Communications at UT-Austin, began using a guy named "Fred the Printer" as a way of illustrating certain points to his journalism students. Thousands of students at UT and then at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill learned of Fred the Printer by taking Elam's classes. Little did they know that Fred the Printer was his good friend and partner, Fred "The Printer" Barbee.

Barbee served as president of the Texas Press Association (1979), West Texas Press Association (1967-68), Texas Gulf Coast Press Association (1975-76) and STPA (1985-86).

Serving his alma mater, he joined the Advisory Council of the College of Communication Foundation at UT-Austin from 1980- 87 (with a one year hiatus) and served as chairman in 1984-85.

He was honored with the Texas Press Association's "Golden 50" award during TPA's 112th Summer Convention, June 28, 1991, at the Marriott Bayfront Hotel in Corpus Christi.

He was named El Campo's "Citizen of the Year" in 1991, giving much of his time since 1968 to his community.

He's a past president of the El Campo Museum Society and the El Campo Rotary Club. Barbee served 16 years on the governing boards of El Campo Memorial Hospital. In years past he was heavily involved with the United Way, and with publicizing back in the early 1970s the need for a new hospital. He also served on the Wharton County Historical Museum board, and many others.

Steve Gularte, El Campo Memorial Hospital administrator, worked closely with Barbee.

"During most of that time he served as the board secretary, making sure that the interest of the community was well documented. He was very dedicated to quality health care services for the community and worked hard to assure that the health care needs of the community were available. Because of his involvement, the hospital will remain a viable and tangible asset of the community for years to come," he said.

"Fred Barbee was a friend to all who met him. When I first came to El Campo, he was one of the first persons I met and he made me feel right at home. His character exemplifies the positive ideals in what it means to be an American, a Texan and a true friend. His wise council and friendship will be truly missed," he added.

Barbee and his staff were also credited with doing much to help reveal the fact that U.S. Army Master Sgt. Roy P. Benavidez did not receive the Medal of Honor for which he had been recommended in 1968. It took 12 years of fighting bureaucrats, but Barbee and his staff, going through channels, helped to get the doors opened that finally led to President Reagan draping the medal around the retired soldier's neck.

Randy Matocha may have summed the newspaperman up best on the marquee at Pit Crew Lube: "Fred Barbee, a true gentleman."