Little Known Facts: From “The Sage of Matador”
By Bob St. John, columnist for the Dallas Morning News, quoted in the Matador Tribune, October 12, 1972. In a Special Edition of the Tribune in honor of Doug Meador.
Doug Meador’s father James E. (Jim) Meador, a former Matador Ranch cowboy, helped dig the foundation for the Motley County jail built in 1891.
His first “official duty” when elected Mayor in 1948 was to “dissolve the mayor’s salary. My creditors never forgave me,” he said.
Meador didn’t finish high school, but during his stay in California he took a correspondence course in writing. “I know what people say,” he explained. “They say I got my diploma at the post office. But I learned what grammar I know and got basic ideas and just a lot of inspiration from that course. Maybe you help yourself by doing. Anyway, I love words and the way they’re formed.”
Doug Meador sent the newspaper free of charge to every soldier from Motley County during World War II.
