Freestone County, Texas
Obituaries



The Fairfield Recorder
August 2008

Dick Reavis

Veteran newspaper publisher and former Moore County News-Press owner Dick Reavis, 
88, of Dumas died Wednesday evening in Amarillo after a brief illness.

Reavis, who lived briefly in Fairfield, owned the News-Press from October 1964 until 
August 1983 when he retired.

The son and grandson of newspapermen, he was born Sept. 23, 1919, in Artesia, N.M. He 
got his start in the newspaper business hand setting type for his father, who published 
newspapers in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma.

Reavis graduated from high school in Cyril, Okla., and was attending college when Pearl 
Harbor was bombed. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps the next day. He served six 
years in the Air Corps as a B-29 navigation instructor and navigator in the Pacific Theater 
of Operations, leaving active service with the rank of captain and receiving an honorable 
discharge from the reserves in the late 1950s with the rank of major.

After World War II service, Reavis returned to college and graduated from Oklahoma 
State University in Stillwater with a bachelor of arts degree in history and a minor in 
journalism.

At OSU he was editor of the O'Collegian student newspaper and also worked as a stringer 
for the Daily Oklahoman newspaper.

Over the years Reavis worked at a number of newspapers in Oklahoma and Texas, and 
was publisher of the Coleman Democrat-Voice, Terrell Tribune, Del Rio News-Herald, 
Port Lavaca Wave, Lamb County Leader and the News-Press.

The veteran newsman bought the Moore County Daily News and a month later purchased 
the competing weekly North Plains Press, combining the two publications into the News-
Press and establishing a semiweekly.

Through the years, Reavis saw newspaper printing evolve from handset type to machine-
set metal type and finally to offset printing. An innovator in the business, he installed the 
first computer typesetting equipment in the Panhandle at the News-Press. His equipment 
was often utilized by salesmen to demonstrate the process to other area newspaper 
owners.

Reavis married the former Kathleen Johnson of Lone Wolf, Okla., on June 7, 1942, 
shortly after completing Air Corps officer candidate school. The two met during a 
summer school session at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, 
where the future Mrs. Reavis earned a bachelors degree in elementary education.
The couple are parents of three sons, Dick J. of Raleigh, N.C., Joe of Fairfield and Gil of 
Seattle, Wash.

During his years in the newspaper business in Dumas, Reavis was named the chamber of 
commerce "Citizen of the Year" in 1972, and served as president of the chamber of 
commerce, Moore County Development and North Plains Country Club.

He is an inductee into the Panhandle Press Association Hall of Fame.
Memorial services were held at 6 p.m. Friday at Morrison Funeral Chapel in Dumas with 
the Rev. Dale Cain, interim pastor of First Baptist Church of Dumas, officiating.
Reavis is survived by his wife and three sons; two grandsons, Brady Reavis of Fairfield 
and Hank Reavis of Seattle; and a brother, Newt Reavis of Illinois.

He was preceded in death by three sisters and a brother.

Arrangements were made by Morrison Funeral Directors.