Howe, Gene

Gene Howe was born in Atchison in 1886. After terminating his formal education during his freshman year of high school, he went to Idaho and Oregon, where he worked as a reporter for several years before returning to assist his father Ed on the Atchison Globe in 1908.

One Friday in December, 1910, Gene’s father told him: “I”ll give you a shade over half the paper, if you”ll go out and raise the money to pay for the other half by Monday morning.”

By 9 o”clock Monday morning Gene had raised a sum well into five figures and, at the age of 25, became publisher of the Globe.

He remained in that capacity until 1951. In 1924, he founded the Amarillo (Tex.) Globe and was publisher of that paper until his death in 1952.

One of Howe’s most notable journalistic feats was his investigation that led to the confession by a well-known Amarillo man that he had killed his wife and maimed his son by planting dynamite in the family car.

Howe’s credo, “A newspaper may be forgiven for lack of wisdom but never for lack of courage,” is engraved over the entrance of the Amarillo plant.