Dave Berry

Dave Berry is editor of the Tyler Morning Telegraph, Tyler, Texas. He served nearly 16 years as managing editor of the Tyler Paper before being promoted to editor in February 2010. He has been a journalist for more than 40 years.

A native Kansan, he grew up on a wheat farm and received a journalism degree in 1970 from Kansas State University. His first job at the Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kansas, was cut short when he was drafted into the Army. He served in Vietnam as a combat correspondent for the U.S. Army Information Office in Long Binh, where he wrote and shot photos for military papers, including the Stars and Stripes.

Returning to civilian life, he worked for five years on the copy desk of the Tulsa Tribune before coming to Texas in 1977 as managing editor of the Brazosport Facts. After five years on the Gulf Coast, he served nine years as executive editor of Dallas-Fort Worth Suburban Newspapers, then moved his family to Kentucky, where he served as editor of the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer. In 1994, he was named managing editor of the Tyler Morning Telegraph.

Dave is past president of the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors board of directors. In March, 2010, the Texas APME presented him with the Jack Douglas Award, the newspaper group’s highest honor for editorial excellence.

He serves on the board of directors of the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic Business Alliance and the Chamber Medical Committee. He previously served two terms on the Student Media Advisory Board at the University of Texas at Tyler and on the board of the Tyler Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. Dave is a founding member of the steering committee of the Fit City Challenge, a community initiative launched in 2010 by the Tyler Paper to raise awareness about the obesity crisis in Tyler and the nation. For those efforts to make Tyler a healthier community, Berry was honored in 2011 with the Doc Ballard Award, an annual award given by the Northeast Texas Public Health District.

He and his wife, Martha, have two grown daughters living in Austin and Garland.