Post-Frosty

Frosty Troy has been running the Oklahoma Observer for so long it's hard to remember when he wasn't. But Frosty is well into his seventies, and he announced a couple years ago that he was looking for someone to succeed him as editor.

Now he's found someone. The Dallas Morning News, in a cost-cutting move, is apparently shuttering its Oklahoma bureau, freeing up Arnold Hamilton to take over at the Observer.

Hamilton grew up in Midwest City, and got some of his earliest bylines at the late, lamented Oklahoma Journal. I remember him as a non-flashy, rock-solid reporter type, and I wasn't surprised to see his name in a Dallas paper after the Journal died. The News apparently is buying him out for about a year's salary; Troy says he'd been trying to talk Hamilton into the Observer position for a number of years.

On the masthead, Hamilton and his wife Beverly are now listed as editor and publisher respectively, Frosty and Helen Troy moving to "founding editor" and "founding publisher." This isn't strictly accurate — the first incarnation of the Observer was a church publication that was in danger of going under — but no one except the Troys would be likely to remember those days anyway, and certainly they deserve the credit for keeping the paper viable for thirty-odd years. Arnold Hamilton has a hard act to follow, but I'm sure he's up to the task.

Posted at 6:20 AM to Soonerland