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1972 Press Club of Dallas "Katie Award" Best Spot Newspaper Coverage Sam Kinch<br>Jr Dallas Morning News Modernist Sculpture 15" tall and very heavy, solid bronze<br>on a wood base.<br><br>Sam Kinch Jr., was the founding editor of Texas Weekly and a former political<br>and government correspondent for The Dallas Morning News.<br><br>Kinch started Texas Weekly in 1984 with two friends, George Phenix and John<br>Rogers. He sold his share in 1998 (the political newsletter is now part of The<br>Texas Tribune) and retired to write, travel and enjoy his family.<br><br>He was a terrific reporter and mentor to other journalists, irreverent, smart as<br>hell, a great lover of dirty jokes, full of history, an incurable reader, a<br>Presbyterian elder and a surprisingly soft touch for people who needed some<br>help.<br><br>He wrote books, including Texas Under a Cloud, with Ben Proctor, about the<br>Sharpstown stock scandal that rocked the Capitol and resulted in the biggest<br>turnover in legislators in modern history, and Too Much is Not Enough, with Anne<br>Marie Kilday, a book on campaign finance in Texas.<br><br>Kinch was a University of Texas grad, with bachelor's and master's degrees in<br>journalism, a former editor of The Daily Texan.<br><br>The Press Club of Dallas originated in the late 1940s, when<br>employees of the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas TimesHerald gathered to<br>socialize after work. The organization was<br>formally founded in 1948 and chartered by the State of Texas in<br>1951. Its members were some of the first responders on the scene<br>when President Kennedy was assassinated, and the new reporting<br>standards established nationwide afterward bolstered the club’s<br>appeal to professionals. The Press Club of Dallas moved locations<br>frequently over the years, residing most recently at the Women’s<br>Museum in Fair Park. The organization currently maintains a board<br>of directors but has no physical location.1<br>The organization’s most notable activities are its annual<br>Gridiron show, Katie Awards, and roasts. The Gridiron show<br>began in 1951 and was modelled on the national one staged in<br>Washington, D.C. Originally consisting of “biting satire,” the<br>performance shifted towards a Broadway-esque style during the<br>late 1970s, but continued to lampoon events in Dallas. The<br>Griddle, a satirical newspaper, was produced and sold at the shows<br>to generate additional revenue. The Katie Awards ceremony began<br>in 1958. It honored “excellence in journalism” and attracted large<br>numbers of members of the press due to the prestige associated<br>with winning one. The Press Club of Dallas also annually roasted<br>prominent local citizens. These events serve as fundraisers for<br>journalism scholarships offered by the organization.2
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