Descriptive Summary
Anderson, Kathie
Byers, William Bowling (Bo)
Byers, Bo, Oral History
Collection
1992
Materials are written in English.
92-230
14 items
Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The
University of Texas at Austin
Tapes and transcripts of an oral
interview with Bo Byers performed by Kathie Anderson in preparation for her paper
entitled Bo Knows: Fifty Years of Texas
Journalism.
Biographical Note
William Bowling "Bo" Byers was born in 1920 in Miami, Missouri. After moving to
Austin to live with an aunt and uncle, Byers graduated from Austin High School in
1936 and the University of Texas at Austin in 1941, where he received a Bachelor of
Journalism degree. His first news story appeared in the Austin American-Statesman in December 1932.
Byers volunteered for the Army Air Corps and was inducted in September 1942. He flew
30 missions as a B-17 navigator in the 351st Bomb Group, 8th Air Force, England, and
was separated from service in September 1945. He worked for the Marshall News-Messenger and received a fellowship to teach
journalism at UT, but left the fellowship after one semester to join the Associated
Press Capitol Bureau in Austin, for whom he worked for 10 years. He joined the
Houston Chronicle's Austin Bureau in 1957, became
bureau chief in 1961, and continued reporting, writing, and directing the bureau
until his retirement in 1983. He then went on to report at the state government
level, and also served as a deacon and elder in Central Presbyterian Church as well
as five years on the City of Austin Parks and Recreation board.
Kathie Anderson interviewed Byers for a Qualitative Measures course at the University
of Texas at Austin and produced a paper, Bo Knows: Fifty
Years of Texas Journalism.
Scope and Contents
The Bo Byers Oral History Collection, 1992, includes six tapes of oral history
interviews with Bo Byers conducted by Kathie Anderson, transcript summaries of the
tapes, biographical background information written by Byers, Anderson’s paper, Bo
Knows: Fifty Years of Texas Journalism and her introduction to the project, and a
computer disc of the introduction and summaries. The collection pertains to Byers’s
life and career as a journalist and bureau chief.
Access Restrictions
The collection is open for research.
Use Restrictions
Donor retains copyright for the interview transcripts and tapes.
Index Terms
Subjects (Persons)
Byers, William Bowling, 1920-
Anderson, Kathie
Subjects (Organizations)
Associated Press
University of Texas. School of Journalism
Houston Chronicle (Houston, Tex.)
Subjects
Journalism
Journalism--Texas
Journalism--Texas--History--20th century
Interviews
Oral history
Places
Austin (Tex.)
Houston (Tex.)
Preferred Citation
Bo Byers Oral History Collection, 1992, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History,
The University of Texas at Austin.
Processing Information
This collection was processed by Deborah Bloys, October 1993.
Basic processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with funds from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) for the Briscoe Center’s History Revealed: Bringing Collections to Light project, 2009-2011.
Detailed Description of the Papers
Inventory
2.325/A109b
Bo Knows: Fifty Years of Texas
Journalismpaper and supporting materials
2X49b
Tapes and transcripts, 1992