MOREHEAD, RICHARD MANNING (1913 ~ 2003). Richard Manning Morehead, writer and public official, was born November 16, 1913, in Plainview, Hale County, Texas, to Edward John (E. J.) and Ethel Daily Morehead. He attended Plainview public schools, the University of Missouri, Wayland College, and the University of Texas - Austin, where he received a Bachelor of Journalism degree in 1935.
His professional career began as a reporter for the Plainview Herald (summers 1933 and 1934), the Daily Texan (1933-1935), and United Press (International) 1935-1942. He joined the Austin bureau of the Dallas Morning News as a correspondent in 1942 and retired in 1979 as bureau chief. During these years he also wrote for several other publications including the Saturday Review, Texas Parade, Texas Bar Journal, Texas Railroad Commission magazine, Business Week, and the Wall Street Journal. He was the Texas correspondent for the Southern Education Reporting Service (a Ford Foundation information project on school desegregation) 1954-1968 and was legislative correspondent for the Southern Regional Education Board in 1981 and earlier sessions.
His many professional awards include: the Headliners Foundation Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism; the Southwest Journalism Forum (S.M.U.) for political writing; and the State Bar of Texas (three times) for the journalist who has done the most to improve justice in the state. In 1972 he co-authored with wife, Judith, "The Texas Wild Game Cookbook." Then in retirement he wrote "Richard Morehead's Texas," "Fifty Years in Texas Politics," "Dewitt C. Greer, King of the Highway Builders," and organized family stories and recollections into "The Morehead Family - Twentieth Century Texans." Additionally, he was contributor or co-author of other books including one on J. Evetts Haley; "Southern Schools - Progress and Problems;" "With All Deliberate Speed;" and "States in Crisis."
He was a member of the Texas Judicial Council for thirty-one years - the longest tenure in history - where he served terms as Vice President and Secretary. He was a member and past president of Austin Professional chapter, Sigma Delta Chi; member and former director of the Association of Petroleum Writers; and charter member, trustee, and life member of the Austin Headliners Club.
A longtime member of the University Presbyterian Church in Austin, he served terms as deacon and elder; was a member of both the Hale County Historical Commission and the Panhandle Plains Historical Society; and the Austin Town & Gown Club. In 1959 he received an honorary LLD from Wayland Baptist University. The Judith English Morehead and Richard M. Morehead Endowed Scholarship was established in 2001 at Wayland Baptist University in their honor.
He was married to the former Judith English Morehead, and they had two children, Judith Morehead Chaplin and Richard M. Morehead, Jr.
Information taken from obituary, Austin American-Statesman, Sunday, February 2, 2003.
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