Notable Alumni

David McCollum was born in Shidler in 1946 at the Shidler General Hospital which was located on the northeast corner of Cosden and Broadway (the old Shidler Bank building). He attended first grade in Mrs. Harned's class in the small building now occupied by the superintendent's office. Then his family moved to Phillips Camp 40 west of Webb City where he attended second grade in Mrs. Adams‘ class. In the third grade, all the third-graders from Shidler were bused to Webb City while the new Ward Elementary school was under construction. As a result, David was reconnected with all his former first grade friends from Shidler. In the fourth grade the Ward Elementary building was completed and all elementary students returned to Shidler and the Webb City school was closed.

In the fifth and sixth grades, David began to develop his love for sports, playing for Mr. Bias‘ grade school football, basketball and baseball teams. In the fifth grade, he won the Shidler school's spelling bee and competed in the Scripps—Howard regional spelling bee in Tulsa. That year he also began his young journalism career when he started writing a weekly column in the Shidler Review, under the guidance of pioneering publisher, Mitzi White, who, at the time was one of the few woman newspaper publishers in the country. David also learned to read music and, along with many of his Shidler friends, took piano lessons from Mrs. Julia Hunt.

In junior high school, David continued his participation in sports and also was hired to be a sports stringer for the Tulsa World, Daily Oklahoman and Ponca City News for which he was paid one dollar per report. It was during this time that he also was initiated into the Order of Del\/Iolay where he advanced through all the chairs and eventually was selected to serve as Master Councilor. Wanting to be in the Shidler High School band, David then traded his piano lessons and music—reading skills to learn to play the trumpet, through Mr. Steve Williams’ semi- private lessons over the summer with friends Charles Wheeler, Charles Cox and jerry Kindle.

David was active through his high school years, playing basketball, baseball and football, serving as basketball captain his sophomore and junior years. He played trumpet and french horn in the marching, concert and dance bands. He led the sales for the school's annual magazine campaign. With support from journalism teacher, Peggy Whitt, David started a school newspaper, Tiger's Tale, where, as a junior, he was editor.

During David's senior year, he was editor of the Gusher yearbook. In DeMolays, he was honored with the rare Chevalier Degree for service to the organization and to others. He, along with Buddy Cumutt, was named "Salutatorian", both of whom had only one "B" during their high school years. (Delores VanCamp was "Valedictorian" with a perfect record of all "A"s.) David was awarded a prestigious Phillips Scholarship by the Phillips Petroleum Company, along with OSU Regents and Oklahoma Press Association scholarships. Also for his academic excellence, he was also offered a generous grant from the Scottish Rite organization.

David attended Oklahoma State University where he received Bachelor of Science degrees in Iournalism and Psychology. While at OSU David joined the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity. He worked throughout his college career, writing for the campus newspaper, the Daily O'Collegian, selling advertising for the local newspaper, Stillwater News-Press, and serving as advertising manager for the OSU Alumni Magazine. During the summers of 1968 and 1969 David interned at the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise dafly newspaper. In 1968 he started a monthly newspaper, The Greek Torch, which was distributed among the OSU campus fraternities and sororities. Upon graduation, David gifted the newspaper to the Interfraternity Council, so that they might use it as a fund~raiser and communications medium on campus.

In 1981 David joined the Journal Record Publishing Company as Vice President,

Director of Marketing. There he directed the creation of the nation's first local daily business newspaper. He also led the sales effort to double sales for the company's Air Force newspaper at Tinker AFB. After these well-publicized successes, he then was recruited to an executive position with a $30 million advertising agency with offices in Dallas, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. There, he personally handled strategic marketing activities for diverse accounts including Sonic Drive—In, Kerr McGee Corporation and several other national and international clients.

The agency business required significant travel assignments. With a growing family (three young children), David chose to leave the advertising agency business and return to the newspaper business which allowed him to remain closer to home. In 1987, he accepted a job as Chief Operating Officer for the family-owned dafly newspaper in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the Bethlehem Globe-Times. The newspaper was failing as a business and needed a quick turnaround. At that time, David also was selected to participate in the American Management Association's "Presidents" Council", an intensive two-year "weekend" program designed to develop management skills for aspiring corporate presidents and CEOS. Using the management skills from this program along with the strategic skills he developed while at the advertising agency, David was able to lead the newspaper back to profitability after which the family chose to sell the newspaper to an international corporate publishing group. When the newspaper was merged with another, he was named General Manager and was placed in charge of marketing the new newspaper, the Express-Times, with distribution in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

While in Pennsylvania, David served on the board of the Pennsylvania Press

Association. He also was recruited to join Leadership Lehigh Valley, an organization he later chaired from 1993 to 1995. He participated on the boards of Musikfest (a regional celebration of music venues in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) and Celticfest (also a regional event featuring Celtic music and Highlands competition). At the urging of former boxer and community activist, Larry Holmes, David volunteered to facilitate the two-year strategic planning effort to redevelop downtown Easton, Pennsylvania. This multi-community action resulted in Binney 8.: Smith (the Crayola company) investing in a major Disney-type attraction in downtown Easton.

The Express-Times newspaper was sold to a larger newspaper corporation, Media-News in 1993. Among the Media—News newspapers was the dafly newspaper in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the Las Cruces Sun-News. It was in need of a make-over and a new strategic direction. 50, in 1996, David was transferred to publish and lead the turnaround of the New Mexico

property. After a year of success, McCollum was promoted to President of the New Mexico division where he not only continued to lead the strategic turnaround of the Las Cruces Sun- News, but also coordinated the acquisition of several other New Mexico newspapers, including those in Farmington, Deming, Silver City, Carlsbad, Alamogordo and Ruidoso.

In 2001, David was recruited to join Community Newspapers Holdings Inc. (CNHI), which, at the time, owned more newspapers than any other publishing company in the country. His role there was to head up their southeast Texas division with newspapers in Port Arthur, Orange, Huntsville, Mexia, Palestine and Corsicana.

Deciding to leave the corporate newspaper world in 2003, David and his wife, Jaki, working together, formed FIG Publications, LLC, and began to purchase newspapers in New Mexico. Their first acquisition was the Las Cruces Bulletin. Later they bought the Rio Rancho Observer and then secured the contract to produce the newspaper for the Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque. (Note: "FIG" stands for "Faith in God".)

The Bulletin was expanded from about 2,000 circulation on newsstands to 20,000 newspapers delivered to homes throughout Las Cruces. David also developed and introduced several new magazines, one of which, the New Mexico State Legislative Guide, was judged in 2007 by the National Newspaper Association (NNA) to be the "Best New Idea" in the newspaper industry. During the time that David owned and operated the Bulletin, it won a plethora of state and national awards for writing, advertising, design, photography and special editions. David, himself, won several individual awards for column—writing and photography.

In 2012, FIG Publications published a 300—page photo history book for the Centennial of the state of New Mexico. The large format, hard cover "coffee table" book titled "Las Cruces: a Photographic Journal", chronicled the history of Las Cruces over 100 years of New Mexico statehood. The project received praise from governors Bill Richardson and Susana Martinez, and received the "Heritage Preservation" award from the state of New Mexico in 2012.

David was deeply involved in the Las Cruces community and received several recognitions, some of which were Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce "Citizen of the Year", NMSU Athletics "Superstar" for being the top fundraiser, "C.B. Smith" award for support of

Downtown Las Cruces, "Community Spirit Award" from the NMSU Foundation, "Business of the Year" from both the Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce and the Hispano Chamber of Commerce, "Community Service Award" from the Dona Ana Arts Council, and was named a "Paul Harris Fellow" by the Rotary International organization. He also was elected Chairman of the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, and served terms as president of Las Cruces Sales and Leads and the Las Cruces Forum, the latter of which he served two terms.

Statewide in New Mexico, David was recognized by the New Mexico Business Weekly in Albuquerque, first as a state "Power Broker" (along with former governors Bill Richardson and Garrey Carruthers), and then as a "Top Performing CEO" after his publishing company posted several consecutive years growth of more than 20% each year. David participated in the Leadership New Mexico organization and is now a lifetime member. He served on volunteer boards in New Mexico, including March of Dimes, United Way, Hospice and the Las Cruces Public School Foundation. He supported his profession as President of the New Mexico Press Association and later as the President of the NM Press Association Foundation. In 2006, his newspaper, the Las Cruces Bulletin, was named "Newspaper of the Year" by the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau. In 2007 David received the prestigious "Viva Award" from the NM Association of Commerce and Industry for his leadership role in developing business and new jobs in the state of New Mexico.

David's leadership style and dedication to helping aspiring journalists and marketers proved to be a boon to students and graduates of New Mexico State University. David has been a regular guest lecturer at NMSU in the School of Mass Communications and the College of Business. He provided valuable internships for undergraduates and always paid them for their work, even though many would have worked for free, just to gain experience. The Bulletin also served more than 35 new college graduates over 10 years by providing them with their first fulltime job after graduation. Many of those "first—timers" have now moved on to highly successful careers in journalism, marketing, public relations and management, and attribute their work experience at the Bulletin as a primary reason for their success.

In late 2012, David and Jaki sold the assets of their publishing business to the Osteen Publishing Company based in South Carolina. David planned to retire at that time, however, the president of New Mexico State University asked him to join the university's athletics department as Deputy Director of Intercollegiate Athletics. He accepted the challenge and for four years was responsible for managing marketing, strategic and financial planning, scheduling, ticket sales, game management and fundraising for the athletics department. During his tenure at the university, the operating deficit was eliminated, old debt was retired, and multiple conference championships were won. Additionally, David reached out to former NMSU players and initiated a new "A" Club, an alumni association for former student-athletes.

After retiring from NMSU, David accepted the offer to serve as Nafional Leadership Advisor for his college fraternity, Phi Kappa Tau, a job where he traveled across the country to hold regional leadership conferences to encourage young university men to develop their

personal leadership skills.

Today, David and Jaki are focused on philanthropy for charitable/non-profit organizations like Cowboys for Cancer Research, March of Dimes and NMSU among others. They spend time with their three children and six grandchildren and enjoy hosting family and friends at their home in New Mexico and their summer getaway in the mountains of North Carolina near Asheville.

David is always quick to point out that his professional and personal success has come from his early life experiences and education in the Shidler schools. He always interjects that he learned about life and what it takes to be successful from teachers, mentors, disciplinarians and spiritual leaders like W.G. Ward, Helen Head, Gladys Snyder, Peggy Whitt, Nelle Stebler, Steve Williams, coach Paul Smith, coach Jess Page, coach Butch Bouher, Herb Bias, Joy Worthington, Anita Himbury, Harold Pool, Bea Harned, Mildred Oglesby, Letha Wade, Maude Ward and many others who were always encouraging and contributed to his excellent education in Shidler schools.

At every step of his career, David has reiterated that the soul of everything he has accomplished has emanated from his experience in town of Shidler, its schools, its churches, its businesses its local newspaper and its people -- all of which are dependent on each other for a community to be successful. He also has pointed out that this concept is true regardless of where one chooses to live.