A. Pat Daniels

Daniels
A. Pat Daniels, retired newspaperman, public relations practitioner and author, passed away peacefully in his sleep on July 17, 2011, at age 94.
He was predeceased by his wife, Shirley Oakes Daniels. Survivors include his sons, Drew Vernon Daniels and wife Earline, Gilmer, TX, and Kevin Patrick Daniels, Houston; daughter, Dena Daniels, Houston; granddaughter, Tara Daniels Strand, Los Angeles, CA; grandsons, Dwayne Daniels and wife Connie, Haughton, LA, Daron Daniels, Haughton, LA, and Dennis Daniels and wife Mary Kaye, Gulf Breeze, FL; nephew Paul Daniels and wife Marcia, Wheaton (Chicago), IL; niece Kay Wilson Brown, Austin, TX; stepson Mike Wells and wife Darlene, Amarillo; stepdaughter Patty Janiel Wells, Houston; step-grandchildren Amanda Paige Wells, San Francisco, and Blake Ogilvie and wife Kris and their children, Brooke, Brayden, Cameron and Carson, The Woodlands, TX.
A native Texan, Daniels was born June 20, 1917, in Cleburne to Meek L. and Etta Harrell Daniels. After his father, an attorney and justice of the peace, died in 1923, when Pat was 6, his mother married Claude L. White, Johnson County tax assessor, the grandfather of Mark White, who became governor of Texas. Daniels was a Methodist and he was an Eagle Scout in Cleburne Boy Scout Troop 5.
After graduating from Cleburne High School in 1934 at age 16, Daniels attended the University of Texas at Austin from 1934 to 1939. He majored in journalism and was elected by the student body as editor of the Daily Texan, student newspaper. The paper that year (1938-39) received the Pacemaker Award. John B. Connally, later governor of Texas, and Daniels were roommates during the year that Daniels was editor of the paper and Connally was president of the student body. Also at the University of Texas, Daniels was president of the Cleburne Club and was the first president of the campus chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, national service fraternity.
Daniels began his newspaper career as a police reporter on the Galveston Daily News in 1939 and two years later was city editor. He was drafted into the U.S. Army one month before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
In the Army, Daniels was editor of the Camp Wallace (Texas) Trainer; personnel sergeant major of the 123rd General Hospital in Hereford, England, and served in the public relations section of the Army's United Kingdom Base of the Medical Corps in London. He was discharged as a technical sergeant in 1945. Daniels was a longtime member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, the Blinded Veterans Association and the Disabled American Veterans.
In his newspaper career, Daniels was copy reader and makeup editor of the Houston Post, executive editor of the Citizen Newspapers chain of weekly Houston community newspapers, publisher of the weekly Market Square Gazette and Bayou City Banner, and a copy editor of the Houston Chronicle, from which he retired in 1992.
In public relations, Daniels was advertising and public relations director for the Walter G. Hall banking and insurance interests in Galveston and Brazoria Counties. He was public relations director for Ritchie Advertising Agency, worked for the Chamberlin-Frandolig Agency and had his own agency for a time. He was public relations director for the original Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Council.
Daniels served as executive secretary for Houston Mayor Roy M. Hofheinz in 1953-56. Previously he had been executive director of the Houston Retail Grocers Association and the Houston Heart Association.
In Sigma Delta Chi, professional journalism fraternity, Daniels was elected president of the Gulf Coast Chapter. He helped found and served as president of the Texas Association of Sigma Delta Chi. Daniels was a longtime member of the Press Club of Houston. He was president of the Texas Public Relations Association, the Galveston Press Club, the Alvin Rotary Club and the University of Texas Journalism Ex-Students Association. In 1956 Daniels established a Friday luncheon group he whimsically called the Slippery Rock Boosters Club. After more than 50 years, this club is still meeting weekly.
Daniels was a member of the Harris County Historical Commission for more than 25 years, and he was a member of the Galveston Historical Foundation and the Texas Historical Foundation. He contributed several articles to the six-volume New Handbook of Texas published by the Texas Historical Association.
As publisher of the Market Square Gazette, Daniels promoted preservation efforts in the downtown historic district. The paper's "Beautify Buffalo Bayou" project in 1968 included dyeing Buffalo Bayou green on St. Patrick's Day. This became a tradition that is continued by The Waterfront Association, The Texas Army and the Slippery Rock Boosters Club. Also, Daniels was instrumental in retrieving the old City Hall tower clock after it had been stolen from the city and was being used in an East Texas entertainment area. This clock is now located across from Old Market Square Park.
Daniels was the author of several Texas historical books, including Texas Avenue at Main Street, BOLIVAR! Gulf Coast Peninsula, A Fascinating Voyage on the Bolivar Ferry, Step by Step, Treasured Trees and Citizen First, Banker Second, a biography of banker Walter Hall that won the outstanding book of the year award in 1985 from the National Association of Independent Publishers. After he retired from the Houston Chronicle in 1992, Daniels and his wife founded a publishing firm in Crystal Beach and Houston, the Peninsula Press of Texas.
In 1939, while riding the ferry to cover events on Bolivar Peninsula, Daniels admired an old partially sunken concrete ship in Galveston Bay. Noting that this historic World War I ship had been ignored for decades, Daniels purchased it in 1992 and set out to give it the attention that it deserved.
He secured recognition for the ship, the SS SELMA, as a Texas Archeological Landmark. Then Daniels worked with the Texas Historical Commission to have an official marker about the SELMA placed on Pelican Island. Daniels' friend, Gen. Carroll Lewis designated the SELMA as the Flagship of The Texas Army. Through Daniels' efforts, the SELMA was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1992, Daniels and his wife instituted the tradition of an annual "birthday" party held in Galveston for the SS SELMA. In 2011 this 19th "birthday" party was attended by about 100 people.
A few years before his death, Daniels was afflicted with macular degeneration, which left him legally blind. Even so, this did not stop him from writing with a specially equipped computer provided by the Veterans Hospital in Tucson, Arizona. He has continued writing on several books. One of these, Strange Saga of the SS Selma, was published in April, 2011.
Five honors of which Daniels was particularly proud were his designation as an Eagle Boy Scout; the Preservation Award from the Harris County Heritage Society in 1975; the Silver Spur awarded by the Texas Public Relations Association in 1963; his commission as an honorary colonel in The Texas Army and the national recognition for the outstanding book of the year in 1985. In his memory, a marker will be placed in the Daniels family plot in the Grandview Cemetery.
The Daniels family wishes to thank especially Catherine Musico for the tender and diligent care she gave to Mr. Daniels throughout his last three months. Also profuse thanks to the Houston Hospice, to Mike Evans, Earl Williams, Bill Nelson, Don Myers, Jim Saye, John Kemp and Gloria West Daniels for their generous contributions of time