The El Paso Herald-Post: 10 Years Later

EL PASO, TX. – Ten years ago Thursday, a chronicle of El Paso history disappeared from newstands.

The afternoon newspaper — The El Paso Herald-Post — closed its doors forever. It’s hard to believe it’s been a decade since the Post presses stopped, after116 years of serving the Sun City.

“I have a lot of friends here that were more than friends and that’s what I’m going to miss,” said Herald-Post editor Ruben Ramirez when the Post ceased operations.Thursday, years laterRamirezsaid, “Because we were the little guys, we had to work twice as hard.” Ramirez has since moved on to become a photo editor for the El Paso Times.

“My first connection to the Herald-Post was whenI was a sophomore at Austin High School. I threw the paper for two years.”In the end, the Herald-Post was Texas’ largest afternoon daily, but when circulation fell below 18,000 the decision was made to shut it down, leaving El Paso a one newspaper town.

“El Paso is in lockstep with the rest of the country, afternoon newspapers were a dying breed all over the country,” said Tom Fenton, publisher of El Paso, Inc and formerly president of the agency that published the Times and Herald-Post.

Betty Ligon was a staff columnist for the Post from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s.”Even the Times staffers were sad, because they realized it would be harder to push it, if they didn’t have competition.” That void, she said, still exists.”It never was just a job for us, it was somethingI looked forward to every day. We just felt like something, it was a part of us.”

It’s a sentiment Ramirezshares,a full decade later,”People see me out on the street and the first thing they tell me, didn’t you work at the herald post?I loved that newspaper, I miss it; the best little newspaper in West Texas. That was the Herald-Post.”

Former Herald-Post staffers are holding a reunion this weekend to mark the ten year anniversary.