Dave Berry

Dave Berry retired at the end of 2014 as 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. All together, he worked as a journalist for more than 44 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 served on the board of directors, executive committee, business-education council and medical committee of the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce, and on the Hispanic Business Alliance. He 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 Fit City Tyler, 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.

Dave continues to enjoy the role of storyteller. His weekly column, Focal Point, ran for three years in the Tyler Paper. Selected columns are available on this website. Others can be found on www.tylerpaper.com by searching for his name and/or Focal Point.

He and his wife, Martha, live in Rowlett, Texas. She is a Cherokee beadwork artist, whose work can be seen online at www.berrybeadwork.com. They have two married daughters living in Austin and Garland. Berry returns to Tyler often, volunteering his services at the Historic Aviation Memorial Museum, helping organize veterans' events, and serving as co-chair of Fit City Tyler.