The Huntsvillan makes it to one year

Upstart news outlet The Huntsvillan celebrates its one year anniversary this week.

"It's about doggone time," said Steph Mamber, President, CEO, COO, CFO, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Huntsvillan, Inc.

Since its founding, the site has averaged one article per week, distributed broadly across its four coverage areas: everyday happenings, local government, creative and expressive activity, and humor. Altogether, these posts have garnered thousands and thousands of reads, making The Huntsvillan one of several valuable news sources for Walker County.

In its first months of operation, patterns, or themes, began to emerge, entirely unplanned – appearing in one article here, another there, still another a few months later. These themes, most visible from a distance, are news in themselves.

This article explores four of the most important, adding one section each day all week. To cap off the week, a new article appears on Friday, updating one from the spring.

Altogether, a sizeable portion of the past year's output will be referenced in exploring these four themes, helping readers learn about early articles they may have missed. You can also find older articles in our archive or explore our sections, which correspond to the four coverage areas listed above.

Asking the questions others won't

The Huntsvillan's self-description is simple: we ask the questions others won't. We just didn't anticipate how difficult that would be.

September 2025, when the site was launched, was a low point for news in Walker County. The Houstonian at Sam Houston State University was just coming back after folding entirely, while the Huntsville Item relied largely on press releases and reports from wire services (such as the Associated Press).

Local government could get awfully comfortable in that environment, and did – as we discovered that very month. We planned to write about a community event held at SHSU that fall, but the university's media arm prohibited us from interviewing the organizer, killing the story.

Another entity across town stiff-armed us at the same time: the Walker County Hospital District. We asked it for contact information for the five members of their elected Board of Managers, for what became a bombshell article about the bond proposal up for election that fall. They provided information for only one.^[1] Their intransigence became a part of the story in its own right.

Subsequent interactions with both entities have been no more productive. We published an article on a homestead exemption the Hospital District extended to seniors – one of the largest in the state – and the board of managers refused to comment. Same deal when we published another article on them doubling their own terms of office.^[2]

Sam Houston State University was similarly silent in last month's big series on university property acquisitions – building new classroom space when existing space is underutilized, buying up commercial property all over town, and going big into the commercial property leasing business. In each case, that silence became a part of the story.

The tide has begun to turn. The Item brought in a new editor who has aggressively pursued hospital district stories and published several articles on transparency, for the hospital district and otherwise. The Walker County Press has also gotten in on the act.

Other entities in town have started adapting to the new environment. Huntsville's City Manager Scott Swigert did not respond to outreaches on articles about pedestrian safety and tourism marketing, but Huntsville Main Street has been responsive on recent stories about murals and the local music scene – with an update from its Tourism Department below.

Local school districts have been particularly responsive. Huntsville ISD answered uncomfortable questions about the closing of a school under their supervision (as part of piece about school ratings rising in the district generally). New Waverly ISD cooperated with our writer on an uplifting story about its graduates getting into top-ranked colleges. Even Richards ISD has gotten involved, answering questions for our recent story on vouchers.

With this new journalism, an added dose of public accountability has come to Walker County. More is coming.

Being bullish on Huntsville and Walker County

At the end of 2025, The Huntsvillan took a holiday break from publishing and mapped out articles for early 2026. One of those was to look inside George Russell's museums on University Avenue – huge troves of art few townsfolk had ever seen. It would be a real eye-opener – in more ways than one.

The amount of art in those museums was astonishing, but so was the number of museums themselves. Some digging turned up the astounding fact that Huntsville has more museums per capita than anywhere else in Texas – only half of them belonging to Russell.

This was wholly unexpected. What was planned as one article turned into three: one on Russell's art, one on the restored houses in which that art resides, and one on the city's tourism marketing, which documented Huntsville's high museum density and its lack of publicity.

It was the first time The Huntsvillan had unearthed something really special about Walker County – and not the last.

Subsequent articles have pointed out the explosion in live music around town, its trendsetting abundance of murals, and the unbelievably high rates at which New Waverly High School graduates are getting into top universities.

The city is also highlighting some of these things. It has recently created a set of digital tours that show off Huntsville's history, art, and more.

"Our digital tours [let] locals and visitors alike explore different facets of our community that they maybe didn't realize resonate as strongly as they do. Huntsville isn't just a one stop town and we're looking to continue adding digital tours to spotlight unique characteristics of Huntsville," said Tracy Chappell, the City of Huntsville's tourism manager.

In the same vein, Huntsville Main Street is working on developing ways for visitors to connect more closely with downtown's many murals.

In June, we made it official: Huntsville is so much more than a prison town. It's a theme you'll see more of in The Huntsvillan's second year.

Just kidding!

Another hallmark of The Huntsvillan is its use of humor, a rarity in sites dedicated to hard news.

This issue arose early on, when preparing to publish last September's article about that fall's bond proposal, which asked for a lot of money from voters. How to put this into a headline? One suggestion: "In Comparative Terms, Hospital Bond Proposal Spends Tax Dollars Bigly."

That suggestion was so controversial it ended up on Steph Mamber's desk. To bigly or not to bigly?

"To bigly," she said, and a new tradition was born.

Since then, The Huntsvillan has sprinkled bits of humor throughout the site. There have been fun headlines on articles about the Huntsville Half Marathon, campaign spending in local elections, New Waverly High School, local school board meetings, and more.

Irreverent bits have also been sprinkled into numerous articles, including jokes about wombats, the Conroe school board, Congressional candidates, and Sam Houston State University's media arm.

There have also been a few articles devoted to humor: about Smiley's on 11th St., the Huntsville Item, the bat houses near the Walls Unit, and more. We published a light-hearted April Fool's piece six months ago and will do another six months from now. These pieces are collected in one of our sections: the Humor Pen.

Is there a place for mixing hard news with the lighter side of life? There is now.

Setting a local news agenda

In April, The Huntsvillan did an article on Huntsville State Park, which had not received local media attention for some time. That story highlighted the park's beauty, introduced its new superintendent to the public, and broke the news of the impending re-opening of a trail that had been closed for years.

Within two months, stories about the park and the superintendent appeared in other local outlets. Together, these gave the park the attention it had lacked for years – and hinted that our choice of stories may influence these outlets as well.

The Huntsvillan regularly ventures into new topical territory: sidewalks, local campaign spending, Sam Houston State University's property purchases, Huntsville ISD staffing problems, and local music studios, for example.

Signs remain that our choices are influencing other outlets. Within just the past week, the Item has written stories on two topics we covered first. Their story on school accountability ratings trailed ours by a few days, while their economic development piece highlighted news we broke in June.

The choice of what gets covered is as important as how it is covered. It is a central part of The Huntsvillan's reason for being: "Asking the questions others won't."

^[1] They supplied the rest just before the time limit set by state law was about to expire, well after the article had run.

.^[2] Hard to believe, but true. Read the article – in a way, they extended them twice.