CLOUD, JOHN WORTH (1908–1990). John Worth Cloud, journalist, oil promoter, poet, and historian, was born on September 14, 1908, in Neosho, Missouri, the son of William Abner and Carrie June Cloud. He married Josie Herrington, teacher and poet, of Huntington, Texas, on December 31, 1936, and they had three children. Cloud attended Kemper Military Academy, Boonville, Missouri. From 1932 to 1939 he worked as fund-raiser and advertiser with various Texas oil companies (Sun Oil in Beaumont, Superior Oil in Houston, and Pioneer Exploration in Athens). He was editor, owner, and publisher of the Huntington Weekly News, the Angelina County News, and related newspapers from 1939 to 1950, when the Angelina plant burned with all the files. Cloud returned to involvement with oil exploration, which he combined with sixteen years as writer and Linotype operator for John McGaughey, owner and publisher of the Albany News. He retired in 1971, after which he worked another year at the Denton Enterprise. Mrs. Cloud taught school in Albany from 1953 to 1971; her autobiographical book, The Way It Was, was privately published in 1990.

Cloud's poetic history of the Albany-Fort Griffin area, Legend of Old Stone Ranch, handset at the Albany News, was proclaimed the "Official Epic Poem of Texas" by a joint Texas House and Senate resolution in 1968. Cloud was subsequently listed in the International Who's Who Among Poets, an English reference work. The Texas State Historical Survey Committee awarded the work "Best Historical Publication of the Year on Local or Regional History." In his eightieth year Cloud's dramatic presentation The Shade of a Wandering Minstrel, staged for friends at meetings of the American Association of Retired Persons and at a gathering at Christ the Servant Lutheran Church in Denton, drew kudos from critics. Cloud was a president and charter member of the Texas Historical Association of Albany, a member of the board of the Albany United Methodist Church and the local Boy Scouts of America, a director of the Lower Neches Valley Authority, state representative of the American Press Association, and a member of the Texas Press Association. He served as foster grandparent at Denton State School, was a recipient of the Chamber of Commerce Presidents Award, and was listed in Who's Who in the South and Southwest. He died on April 16, 1990, at Long Meadow Nursing Center in Denton.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

Albany News, June 26, 1969.

Charles E. Linck, Jr.

Citation

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.

William E. Bard, "ADAMS, WALTER R.," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fad08), accessed March 19, 2015. Uploaded on June 9, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.