|
DALLAS MORNING NEWS SALTY TEXAS EDITOR, MIKE BOGGESS, DIESKemp, Texas, Funeral services for one of the last personal editors in the United States, Mike S. Boggess, 77, of the Kemp News will be held here Saturday. He died in Kemp Thursday. He had put out a pungent, hand-set Kemp News for 43 years. He had been a country newspaperman for more than 60 years. The Kemp News which he published weekly from this city, usually four pages, was known far beyond the township. It was a typographical antique, handset, in an old-style body type with advertisements occupying the best places on the front page. Few people who ever left Kemp stopped subscribing for it, however. Each weekly copy was cherished by other people who had never seen Kemp or Boggess. It had a patent honesty and great flavor. Boggess once wrote, in describing a baseball game which his Kemp team won over a Dallas nine; "These old city boys raised on beer and Post Toasties just can't compete with people raised on cowpeas and turnip greens." It is the custom of politicians to send an announcement of their candidacy to the smaller papers with a fee for publishing it. Once, Boggess got one from Speaker Sam Rayburn of the United House of Representatives with the usual fee. He wrote: "Sam Rayburn has asked us to announce his candidacy for re-election to the Congress. He has been up there since the woods caught fire and he wants to stay until the second coming." He hated poke salad, "I'd just as soon take castor oil and get it over with," he once wrote. And in the issue before he died: "Some of the English fight fans have been griping about some of the punches that Marciano landed on their champion, especially one where he was hit while on one knee trying to get up after being knocked down. Rocky knew that he wasn't praying." Boggess had no use for wrongdoing of any kind, and when this sort of thing came up, he waxed sulphurous. He was a rare kind of man, a really widely beloved one. His small shop was a calling place for a lot of big city newspapermen and public relations people, and Kemp people were truly fond and proud of him. They boasted that few Kemp school athletic contests ever took place without his presence. Until he became ill about a year ago, he could still shoot in his middle seventies a pretty good golf score or go on a long quail hunt. He played a game of golf in Dallas this week and put out his weekly paper the day before he died. Like most old-time editors, he grew up in the newspaper business. He quit school in the ninth grade and went to work for the Kaufman Herald with the understanding that he would work six months for nothing. He then put in three years for that paper at $10.00 a month and four more at $17.00 a month. After working for the Kaufman Sun for seven years, he hunted richer fields and passed a rural letter carrier's exam with a grade of 99. He carried the mail out of Kaufman for seven years, but even then he worked nights on the Kaufman Daily Post for $15.00 a month. He bought the Kemp News and moved to Kemp in 1912. He was a lifelong Methodist. Survivors include his wife, the former Virgie Walker, who was the daughter of the first newspaperman in Kaufman County; a son William D. Boggess of Palm Springs, California; two daughters; Mrs. Charles Barrett of Garland and Mrs. Pollard Runnels Jr. of Terrell; a brother Rough Boggess of Oklahoma City, and a sister Mrs. Homer Hicks of Dallas. TERRELL TRIBUNE SO LONG, OLD FRIENDKaufman County's dean of newspaper men--the last of this section's Fourth Estaters of the old school--has written his last line. The death of Mike Boggess of Kemp is another link out of a chain that once stretched coast to coast among early day printer-newsmen. Mr. Boggess, a warm friend of this newspaper throughout its years, probably had more Kemp News editorials reproduced by other news organs than any publisher in the Southwest. He was a man of his own thinking, and didn't hesitate to express his convictions in print. "I don't expect everyone to agree with my way of thinking." he once wrote, "if they did I wouldn't have any respect for them as subscribers." At 77, Mr. Boggess wrapped up his last days just as he would have wanted them. He printed his paper Wednesday morning, took his weekly afternoon for golf, and went to a baseball game Wednesday night. Thursday he went to Dallas to "see about a hearing aid" and died suddenly, from a heart seizure shortly after reaching home that afternoon. His plant was unique among today's newspapers in that it was one of the few remaining hand-set publications. No typesetting machine clanked up his shop, and he probably wouldn't have had one as a gift. He liked his plant the way he had known it from the start. Mike--as he was known even to children of his "south country"--was a lover of all sports. Probably his greatest recreation pleasures were during quail season, and he had a reputation unequalled by few as a trainer of fine birddogs. Mr. Boggess denied himself nothing that he wanted bad enough, and he spent no time thinking of the past. He forgot today with each setting of the sun and started looking forward to its rise tomorrow. No man has ever breathed that had greater love for his family in particular, and all people in general. It could be said with all accuracy that there never had been a youngster in Kemp who remained there until school age that hadn't been handed not one, but many buffalo nickels by Mr. Boggess. That's when they got to knowing him as Mike--and he liked it that way. Mr. Boggess never asked anyone to take his paper yet the News has a subscriber list that would be the envy of many weeklies in much larger fields. Probably the News' most distant subscriber today is a former Kemp family now engaged in oil work in Arabia. A talent known to few outside his immediate family was the Boggess bisquit. And he cooked them 365 mornings a year--around 5:30 a.m. Although Mrs. Boggess is a bread maker that causes guests to remain for "more that they should have eaten," she never interfered with the breakfast biscuit making of "the News man." He had his own formula and every painful cooked out just like the last. He measured nothing--used lard, not shortening--and couldn't understand anyone speaking of biscuit failures. His dough-mixing spoon sounded the get-up gong for any others who might have been on hand for breakfast. Finished with the mixing, Mike always chunked the big spoon at the kitchen sink and its jangle was heard rooms away. Although he planted a garden every year, Mike was really a meat-and-potatoes man, with a special fondness for baked sweet potatoes. He wouldn't touch creamery butter with a stick and never tasted margarine. One of his favorite away-from-home dishes was fried oysters, in or out of season. Six wasn't enough and a dozen was too many-- so he ordered nine. A Kemp News subscriber didn't have to be a Harvard man to understand Mr. Boggess and his editorials. He was probably one of the first newspaper men to discover without the aid of a Gallup poll that the greatest number of readers best understand the simplest writing. So long, old friend, give my regards to Dad. THE TERRELL TRIBUNE Veteran Newspaperman Dies In Kemp ThursdayM. S. Boggess, this section's oldest newspaperman died suddenly at his home late Thursday afternoon. Mr. Boggess, 77, had been publisher of the News at Kemp since 1912. He was the father of Mrs. Pollard Runnels Jr. of Terrell. Services, in charge of Anderson Clayton Bros., will be held at the Methodist Church in Kemp at 10.00 a.m. Saturday May 28, with the Rev. Alton Vaughn officiating. Interment will be in the Kemp Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Felix Mc Dougald, Leslie Reasonver, Jarvis Selvige, Fred Creecy, Dr. H. A. Taylor, and Jess Murrell all of Kemp. Born at Lawndale (now Mabank) on March 23, 1878, Mr. Boggess was one of the state's most colorful--and-quoted small town newspaper men. The son of Bennett and Texie Bogges, the family resided in Kaufman through most of Mr. Boggess' youth. It was there that he started in his first newspaper work under the late Monroe Drew, an early day Kaufman publisher. On Dec. 19, 1912, he purchased the Kemp News and daily traveled the distance between Kaufman and Kemp, 12 miles, not as commuting is known today, but on foot. Shortly after purchase of his own newspaper, Mr. Boggess built a home for his family in Kemp and had remained a resident there since. Active in all efforts for betterment of his town and county, Mr. Boggess was a most enthusiastic booster of high school sports and followed them faithfully in every field. He was well known to many here through his regular appearances on the Oak Grove golf course, and a frequent attendee at Terrell athletic events. He was a life-long member of the Methodist Church. Survivors include his wife, one son, William Boggess of Palm Springs, California, two daughters, Mrs. Charles Barrett of Garland, and Mrs. Pollard Runnels of Terrell, one sister Mrs. Homer Hicks of Dallas, one brother, Rough Boggess of Oklahoma City, and three grandchildren. Jack Callan The Passing of Mike Boggess of the Kemp News is a great loss to that community and to the newspaper fraternity. Mike belonged to the old school. His hand-set weekly was one of the few still published in Texas, but its originality and the frankness of its editor made it in great demand. We had a great respect for him and his views and admired him for the courage of his convictions. T. L. Jennings T. L. Jennings also salutes the indomitable M. S. Boggess in his passing. The tributes to this unique figure in latter-day Texas journalism are more than deserved. Such forthright and forcible comments as his have rarely been heard in Texas since the days of W.C. Brann. The pilot of the Kemp News was a master of the cutting phrase and he never was known to quail before gods, men or beasts. Yet, with all he was a kindly soul and possessed of a deep humanity. He created a lasting niche for himself in Texas' hall of journalistic fame, mainly for his forthrightness in battling for the public good. |
Copyright © 2006-2010 by Abby Balderama Coordinator of the Kaufman County, TXGenWeb Project site ALL RIGHTS RESERVED |