'Tyler Morning Telegraph' Publisher Nelson Clyde III Dies

By: Tyler Morning Telegraph Publisher Nelson Clyde III died Wednesday night in a Dallas hospital after a lengthy illness.

"Our family and our organization mourn the loss of our leader," said Nelson Clyde IV, his son and associate publisher of the Tyler paper. "My father was a man who demonstrated his many character qualities in a quiet but significant way."

In addition to his role of publisher, Nelson Clyde III, 61, also was president of T.B. Butler Publishing Co. He was a fourth-generation member of the family business established by his great-grandfather in 1910. He had been publisher and president since 1990.

Before becoming publisher, Clyde worked in various areas of the paper, including serving as editor from 1980 to 1990. He worked at the LaPorte-Bayshore Sun and the Amarillo Globe-News in the late 1960s before joining the Tyler paper in 1969.

The Texas Daily Newspaper Association presented Clyde the 2006 Frank W. Mayborn Award for Community Leadership, an award given annually to a publisher or newspaper executive whose contributions to society and leadership in the community have affected the newspaper industry.

"Nelson Clyde III was an influential man, not only in East Texas but across the state. As publisher of the Tyler Morning Telegraph, he epitomizes the family and the newspaper. He did so much for the city of Tyler and the East Texas area," said Ken Whalen, executive vice president of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association.

Clyde served as president of the board of The Discovery Science Place, a children's museum that opened in 1993. He was the project's development chairman.

"There are those who pass quietly through the history of any organization and those who leave their imprint upon it when they are gone. Nelson gave all he had to The Discovery Science Place over the last 13 years - his heart, his head and his hands - and neither the museum nor I will ever be the same," said Katie Powell, executive director of the museum.

"His approach to publishing a daily newspaper exhibited his fairness and a sense of equality that embodied excellence in community journalism," Executive Editor Jim Giametta said. "His love for Tyler and the East Texas region was exemplified every day with each edition focusing on making his hometown a better place."

In addition to his son Nelson Clyde IV, Clyde is survived by his wife, Sherry; sons Andrew Ferrell Clyde and John Kittrell Clyde; daughter Anna Elizabeth Malone; seven grandchildren; his parents, Calvin Nelson Clyde Jr. and Patsy Elizabeth Clyde; a brother, Thomas Clyde; and two sisters, Carole Clyde Wilson and Eloise Clyde Chandler.