Miller, Carhart new Hall of Fame members

Former PPA board member and longtime area publisher Phil Miller of the Groom News and pioneer newspaper man and former Clarendon publisher Ed Carhart were inducted into the PPA Hall of Fame Banquet on Friday night, April 15, 2016, in the Clarendon College Bairfield Activity Center.

Phillip James Miller grew up in the newspaper business. His father, Joseph Miller, owned the Panhandle Herald and the White Deer News. Phil grew up helping with the family business by doing anything that needed doing. He attended college at Oklahoma University, earning his degree in government and city management. He worked for the Daily Oklahoman and the Norman Transcript while attending school.

After a few years of government jobs, Phillip had the opportunity to purchase The Groom News from longtime owner, Max Wade, in 1987. During that period of time, he rescued three papers from near distinction, The McLean News, which had been lost in a fire, The Lefors News and The Claude News. He actually rescued the Claude New twice. The last time was without any address list of subscribers, equipment or a building. He also served PPA as a board member. Phil retired in 2009 due to health issues, selling to longtime editor, Donna Burton.

Ed Carhart was born December 15, 1863, in Watertown, New York, and his family moved to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 1874 where, at an early age, he and his sister began publishing a religious newspaper, The Early Dawn. In 1878, that outfit began printing the Texas Panhandle’s first newspaper – The Clarendon News – once a month for Carhart’s cousin, Lewis H. Carhart, who had founded the Clarendon colony in Texas earlier that year.

At age 16 with financial backing from his father, Ed Carhart left Wisconsin for Texas, stopping in Chicago to purchase a printing outfit for the colony. He shipped it to Gainesville and there loaded it into a wagon for a three-week journey to Clarendon. The young man installed the Panhandle’s first printing press in the News office – a picket house chinked with mud and with a dirt floor. Ed Carhart turned the News into a weekly publication and printed his first edition in July of 1880, a feat which impressed the colonists and “swelled the hat band” of the young man. He increased the annual subscription rate from 50-cents to $2 per year.

The next year he married Mary Estella Brewer. They were the first young couple married in Donley County, and they eventually made their home in Panhandle where they had four children. Carhart sold the Clarendon newspaper in 1884 later and his family became early pioneers in Carson County. During his lifetime, Ed was engaged in the drug store business, banking, an auto dealership, and a grain elevator. He served for a time as postmaster of Panhandle and as treasurer of Carson County. Ed Carhart died on February 4, 1946, and is buried in Panhandle. Accepting the award was Ed Carhart’s great-grandson, Pat Carhart.