Temple, TX opening

[BujuBanton]

The award-winning sports department of the Temple Daily Telegram, a 25,000-circulation newspaper in Central Texas, is seeking a skilled, enthusiastic writer to complete our full-time staff of five. Job responsibilities for the selected candidate will be covering area high schools and/or colleges, designing pages and editing local and wire copy. Candidates should have strong knowledge of sports and experience in newspaper writing/reporting. Design/editing experience is preferred but not required. We take pride in our coverage of Temple, Belton and 23 other area high schools, Temple College and the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton. We also cover the CenTex Barracudas indoor football team and regularly staff Big 12 Conference football games. Interested candidates should send a cover letter, resume with references, and at least five writing clips to Telegram sports editor Greg Wille by mail (Temple Daily Telegram, Attn. Sports Department, P.O. Box 6114, Temple, TX, 76503) or e-mail ([email protected]). For more information, call (254) 778-4444 ext. 220 after 2:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday

Anyone know about this paper? Seems bush league from the website, but they have two local colleges to cover. Sounds better than Abilene, closer to civilization at least.

 

[PeterGibbons]

Isn't this paper owned by the same people that own Killeen? I may be mistaken. But, if it is, I'd stay away based on what I've heard about Killeen and its ownership.

 

[joe_schmoe]

It is the same ownership, but the problem in Killeen is management. Both papers are pretty much independent of each other, and the Killeen managemenet has been in shambles for a couple of years now.
Temple's website is probably among the worst in the industry, but the paper itself is fine. Recent design change and lots of local coverage (you will have plenty of clip building opportunities).
They had an opening not too long back. Not sure if this means they are still looking or if it's a new one.

 

[bevo]

Yes, Temple and Killeen both have the same owner. The owner is also editor and publisher of both papers, but both have managing editors who actually run the day-to-day operations. She is actually the widow of papers' founder, who died around 20 years ago. The man was in his 80s. I dont' know if the woman is in her 60s as of today. Huge age difference. Make of that what you will.

Both papers have huge turnover rates. But that's what you would expect from 20,000 circ. papers in Hank Hill country. Temple must have recently started turning things around, from what I hear. There's a fairly new managing editor, I think. The former ME passed away sometime last year. He had been there forever and was probably holding that paper back.

Killeen used to be much, much better than Temple. But that was four or five years ago now. Sounds much worse today.

 

[BujuBanton]

Ok, so not really sure on the paper's quality. How about the town in general? Seems ok since Austin and Dallas are pretty close by for the weekend get away. Any backwards laws like bars close at 12?

 

[joe_schmoe]

Used to have a buddy that worked there about 3 years ago. We once went to a bar after he got off and stayed there until after 2, so unless that's changed, pretty normal. As I recall we were able to walk to this bar from his office too, and it was fairly decent place.
Otherwise, its a fairly quiet town, not a lot happening there, but you can get to Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio all within 2.5 hours (Austin is only about 30 minutes). And actually when I drove through it last month on vacation, seemed to be a lot of construction going on, so maybe there's more happening.

 

[I Like HD]

The only way this job would work is if you figured out a way to live in Austin and commute to Temple for work. But as the last guy said, construction is always terrible on I-35 around there. It's taken me 30 minutes to get from Georgetown to Temple before.

 

[Zabka]

Otherwise, its a fairly quiet town, not a lot happening there, but you can get to Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio all within 2.5 hours (Austin is only about 30 minutes). And actually when I drove through it last month on vacation, seemed to be a lot of construction going on, so maybe there's more happening.

I worked at this shop a moon or two ago and I can assure you Austin is not 30 minutes from there, more like 60 to 75.

Any questions, feel free to PM.

 

[joe_schmoe]

Ehh, I was going about 110 MPH at the time. But yeah, you're right, more like an hour. I think I was just assuming Georgetown or what have you.

 

[bevo]

Yeah, good luck commuting from Austin to Temple on $10 an hour.

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

Yeah, did the Austin to Temple drive today. It took about an hour, 10 minutes, and that was with Saturday afternoon traffic coming out of Austin.
On another note, every police officer in Temple apparently eats at the Chick-Fil-A off I-35.

 

[Billy Pritchard]

Yeah, did the Austin to Temple drive today. It took about an hour, 10 minutes, and that was with Saturday afternoon traffic coming out of Austin.

Why in the world would anybody be leaving Austin? Take my advice, turn around and stay -- there's nothing out there in the rest of Texas worth a trip. ;D

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

My first trip to Austin wasn't under optimal conditions. We'll just leave it at that.
But it did look nice.

 

[joe_schmoe]

Yeah, did the Austin to Temple drive today. It took about an hour, 10 minutes, and that was with Saturday afternoon traffic coming out of Austin.

Why in the world would anybody be leaving Austin? Take my advice, turn around and stay -- there's nothing out there in the rest of Texas worth a trip. ;D

Heh. Most Texans will tell you the only reason Austin has anyone living there is because they all get stuck of I-35 or MoPac and CAN'T ever leave. All 6th street is a big party of people too tired of trying to get out.

Greenville Ave. in Dallas is much, much better.

 

[Billy Pritchard]

Austin has soooo much more to offer than 6th Street, especially for those of us who have put our college-like partying days well in the past. When I'm in town these days I spend most of my time perusing shops in South Austin, hitting clubs like the Continental, eating at Stubb's or wasting hours at either Waterloo or Book People. To me, no other city in Texas -- and few outside of Texas -- has more to offer.
And since I have completely threadjacked here, I should at least pull it back by saying that living 70 minutes or so from Austin isn't enticing enough for me to apply in Temple. I know some people who have gone through there and at the sister paper in Killeen, and I haven't heard anything really good about either place (at least in the past couple years, although it sounds like it might be different now in Temple).