Robert Holt Whitten Sr., publisher for more than 50 years of The Navasota (Texas) Examiner, died Thursday after suffering from acute leukemia.
Whitten bought the paper, formerly owned by his father, in 1947 after graduating in 1940 from the University of Texas at Austin with a journalism degree and then serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
The 87-year-old remained at its helm until it was sold in 2001, but his first job with the paper was years earlier?a paper route when he was in first grade.
?He was the real McCoy -- a very hard-working newspaperman,? Whitten?s friend Russell Cushing told the Bryan-College Station Eagle. ?He ran an award-winning paper and gave Navasota the best years of his life.?
A past secretary of the Texas Press Association and former president of the Texas Gulf Coast Press Association, Whitten was honored in 1992 with the TPA Golden 50 Award in recognition of more his five decades in journalism.
Whitten received several other awards, most notably one from the Headliners Club in Austin for a March 1957 photo of the Navasota City Hall clock tower demolition, which was picked up by the Associated Press for $5 and widely printed.
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