Texas Publisher Clester Ray 'Buddy' Moore Dies at 80

By: E&P Staff Hardin County News founder and Kountze News Publisher Clester Ray "Buddy" Moore, 80, died Feb. 13.

Legally blind since birth, Moore began work in newspapers as a 12-year-old printer's devil. At 14, he penned a sports column. Among others newspapers, he worked for the Silsbee Bee, The Orange Leader and Houston Post in Texas, as well as The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle. He also ran a commercial print shop.

Beaumont Enterprise writer Amy A. Collins quotes Moore telling Metropolitan Beaumont magazine that he "always gave the other side a chance to be heard. If it was up to me, all weeklies would be written in first-person. It's a daily's job to give the straight facts. A weekly's job is to give you something good to read."

With his wife, Jeanie, Moore launched the weekly Hardin County Messenger (now the Hardin County News) in the 1970s. He also worked for the Kountze News, and in 1974 bought it from Archie Fillingim, a publisher The Record Newspapers' Roy Dunn describes as a man of similar temperament who cancelled Lyndon Johnson's subscription until the then-Vice president paid up. See his appreciation, including an account of Moore's office pets -- a pair of parachuting armadillos.

Moore sold the Kountze News in 1991, stayed in the business at the Kountze Journal, then closed that paper seven years later owing to poor eyesight, " leaving Kountze without a newspaper for the first time in half a century," writes Collins.

Moore supported local issues and spotlighted student accomplishments, according to Collins, who noted he once told the Enterprise that 80:20 is an ideal ratio of good and bad news.

The Enterprise reported in 1975 that a Hardin County commissioner beat up Moore at the county courthouse in 1975, breaking his nose and dislocating his shoulder after being provoked by Moore's stories accusing the commissioner of taking kickbacks. Collins notes that Moore's home was destroyed after two fires on the same day in 1977.

Also from her paper's archives, Collins finds that the Press Club of Southeast Texas revoked Moore's membership after he wrote about a certain judge and the "theft" of votes in the county. "I'm a strong believer in the people's right to know, especially the taxpayer," he told The Enterprise after closing his paper.