Obit of Townes, William A (t520) - Unknown County, Oklahoma Submitted by: Gene Phillips 26 Jul 2004 Return to Unknown County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/okstate.html ========================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ========================================================================== TOWNES, PD BOSS IN '48, DIES AT 88 Published on July 8, 1997 The Santa Rosa Press Democratt William A. Townes, the maverick newspaper "doctor" whose bold, plunging style resurrected The Santa Rosa Press Democratt in the late 1940s, pulling it out of debt and transforming it from a tool of the political elite into a respected source of information, died in North Carolina on June 2. He was 88. Known for his tenacity, news judgment and for bringing controversy wherever he went, Townes was hired by more than a dozen newspapers across the country to reshape policy and whittle out corruption after World War II. "He was unquestionably controversial," said Fred Fletcher, a former Santa Rosa Press Democratt political reporter who went on to head the San Francisco Newspaper Guild. "But I, like others, think he had a real stroke of genius in him." Serious and somewhat cold-blooded, Townes understood quality, sought out and encouraged talented young reporters and pushed editors to take risks. Almost everywhere he went he demanded and got total editorial control, Fletcher said. When he came to The Santa Rosa Press Democratt in 1948, the paper was in debt and its news staff was tightly linked to -- if not one with- the political establishment, according to Santa Rosa Press Democratt columnist Gaye LeBaron in her book, "Santa Rosa -- A Twentieth Century Town." The political columnist was the state senator, the editor was a leader of the local Democratic party, the police reporter was the coroner, and the sports editor was the assistant county clerk, she said. Townes not only ended such conflicts of interest, but brought in new columnists, opened bureaus in Ukiah and Petaluma and expanded circulation to Lake and Mendocino counties. Townes only stayed four years, but in that time, the paper's reputation grew and its circulation doubled, Fletcher said. Born in Oklahoma, Townes was an orphan at 9 and on his own by age 12, said his son, Brooks Townes. As a teen, he sold newspapers in small towns and hitchhiked around the country. Eventually he landed a reporting job at the Cleveland Press, his son said. Although he had little schooling, in 1943 he applied for and became one of the first recipients of a Neiman fellowship at Harvard University, a fact he was proud of all his life, Fletcher said. He then worked his way up in the newspaper world, working as an editor and eventually as a news consultant. "He made papers into things people wanted to read," said Brooks Townes. In addition to The Santa Rosa Press Democratt, Townes worked and consulted at the Seattle Star, the Detroit Free Press, the Miami Herald, the Baltimore Evening Sun and the Los Angeles Examiner, his son said. He retired in 1973 and he and his wife, Lucile, moved to the Smokey Mountains in North Carolina and bought the house she grew up in. Townes is survived by his wife and his son Brooks Townes of Sausalito. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Unknown County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/okstate.html