By Cyndy Slovak-Barton.
So often, people will say “What a difference a year makes.”
But as this staff looks back a year ago, we remember our former publisher Bob Barton, who passed a year ago this week.
He died the week of the MLK celebrations in 2013. That seemed fitting. Because he was a rebel rouser, because he fought for civil rights, because he did the Christian thing ... helping the common person in small ways that few others even knew about.
Sunday evening, the city of San Marcos honored Bob along with others as a Civil Rights Trailblazer. Yes, Bob fought for Civil Rights in the 1950s and 1960s, working with African Americans and Mexican Americans of Hays County to get the right to vote, to get on the ballot, to stop the discrimination that was blatant then.
He had a cross burned in his yard; his business suffered; his family sought out others of like persuasion.
But he made a difference in the lives of many people, and thus, this week, he was honored for what he did ... way back then.
The staff of Barton Publications feels his presence here still. His photo hangs on the wall; his rolltop desk sits just inside the front door; his political leanings are evident in the photos of and letters from President Lyndon Baines Johnson, County Judge Will Burnett and Senator Ralph Yarborough.
There are so many Bob stories to tell – Bob getting the county sheriff’s deputies and Kyle police to help him round up his goats, his cattle, his donkeys as they wandered along the roads; Bob holding court at the Dairy Queen; Bob hiring people who were down on their luck and just needing a break; Bob helping out a friend of a friend of a friend who needed a quick loan because they weren’t being treated right because they were “brown.”
That was the way he tried to do things. Always in the background – talking his sister-in-law into running in a beauty pageant, getting his sister to talk with someone because, believe it or not, he was shy in his youth, talking his daughter-in-law into taking over the newspaper he had run as a hobby for so many years and then commanding, “Get it in the black!”
He knew business so well that most businessowners’ heads would spin. He could tell you the cost of every inch of newsprint and what percentages of gross you should run on staff, on rent, on utilities, on every tiny little part of the business.
He could predict the outcome of elections before the polls closed – just by looking at the turnout in each precinct.
He knew the history of Hays County, Buda and Kyle like few others – and always threatened to write the “real” history of the county, telling the truth behind the stories.
He knew this area would grow, and he knew that, to maintain the community, Buda and Kyle needed a strong newspaper. He always wanted to own the News-Dispatch out of Dripping Springs and Wimberley. He saw the future growth. And he must have been pulling our chains when the newspaper became available late last year. Yep, he got his wish.
He put his money where his mouth was. And it was a large mouth with a booming voice.
Thanks, Bob. We miss you still.
Cyndy Slovak-Barton reluctantly took over as publisher of the Hays Free Press and News-Dispatch years ago. No family member seems to be stepping up to the plate yet.
