the Steven home, where he broke the news that the Endowment board had ordered him to dismiss Steven. Jones had to comply. On September 3, the paper published a story announcing that Everett Collier was now the new editor. No mention was made of Steven or the Houston Endowment board. Houston Post staff wrote an article about the change, but top management killed it. Only two weekly papers in Houston: Forward Times (which targeted the African-American community) and the Houston Tribune (an ultra conservative paper) mentioned the firing. Both papers had rather small circulations and no influence among the city's business community. The two major newspapers in Houston never mentioned Steven for many years thereafter. A Time magazine article gave much of the credit for increasing circulations to changes made by Steven. Some of these changes included: Moving his own desk into the open newsroom to improve interaction with his staff of reporters; Instituting an "action line" for readers, with prompt follow-up by Chronicle staff; Vowing to print the name of every Houstonian at some time; Adding a Mexico City bureau and expanded the bureau in Austin, Texas; Hiring a science editor to improve coverage of the new manned space flight center. Saul Friedman, one of the young reporters Steven recruited, later wrote that Steven was neither as aggressive or as liberal as the Houston conservatives claimed. His closest and most important political allies in Texas were LBJ and Governor John B. Connally. Personal life After moving to Tulsa, Steven met Esther Lucile ("Lucy") Shoemaker, daughter of John David Shoemaker and Rachel Elizabeth Hix. Both parents had moved to Tulsa from Marshall, Illinois, where Lucy was born in 1910. Bill and Lucy married in Tulsa on July 7, 1934. They had three daughters and one son. Lucy died on March 15, 1999 in Sarasota, Florida. Notes References 1908 births 1991 deaths People from Eau Claire, Wisconsin University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication alumni Tulsa Tribune people Star Tribune people Houston Chronicle people American newspaper executives American newspaper editors American male journalists Businesspeople from Tulsa, Oklahoma Businesspeople from Minneapolis People from Houston 20th-century American businesspeople Journalists from Oklahoma Journalists from Texas People from Sarasota, Florida 20th-century American journalists