The Hawk Eye - Harris Publishers at The Hawk Eye

Harris Publishers At The Hawk Eye

During the Harris tenure, Clarence Moody was editor and publisher from 1941 to 1957 when he retired. He was succeeded by Stuart Awbrey.

Weekend publication changed from Saturday to Sunday in 1959. The name, Hawk-Eye Gazette, was shortened to The Hawk-Eye on May 7, 1960, when the first issue was printed in the new building — a converted automobile dealership and bus garage at 800 S. Main St.

In 1965, Stuart Awbrey was succeeded as editor by John McCormally. McCormally also shared co-publisher duties with John Bishop. Three years later, Bishop retired and McCormally became editor-publisher. Conversion to offset printing occurred in 1972 at a cost of $800,000. The hyphen was dropped from The Hawk Eye at that time.

In 1979, Awbrey returned to The Hawk Eye as editor-publisher and McCormally became a national correspondent for the Harris News Service. Six years later, Awbrey retired and was replaced by Bill Mertens. After beginning his career as a reporter at The Hawk Eye in 1970, Mertens worked at other Harris Group newspapers prior to assuming editor-publisher responsibilities in 1985.

The Hawk Eye converted from an afternoon to a morning publication Nov. 1, 1993.

In 1997, The Hawk Eye started thehawkeye.com .

Steve Delaney, a former reporter and business editor for The Hawk Eye, assumed the editor-publisher position in 2004 after Mertens died. Prior to his return to The Hawk Eye, he was the editor-publisher of another Harris Group newspaper, The Garden City Telegram in Kansas.