David Morris takes over The Gatesville Messenger, vows to keep stories local

David Morris has taken over as publisher of The Gatesville Messenger, bringing more than 25 years of newsroom experience to a paper that still serves as one of Coryell County’s closest public records.

The handoff came after the April 25, 2026 edition marked the last issue produced by Hyde Media before ownership transferred to the Copperas Cove Leader Press under a new parent company, Gatesville Newspapers, Inc. The paper kept its name, and most of the current staff were set to remain in place, a sign that the change was meant to preserve continuity as much as to mark a new start after the March 16, 2026 disaster that forced the transition.

Morris has lived in Coryell County for 43 years and owns property in the far south corner of the county. He has worked in every part of the newsroom business, a background that matters in Gatesville, where local coverage has to stretch across school decisions, election updates, business changes, crime and the small-town milestones that shape daily life.

Readers have already been stopping by and introducing themselves to the new faces in the paper’s new location, a small but telling sign that the Messenger remains part of the community’s daily rhythm. Morris’s role is not only to manage a newspaper, but to help preserve the record of a county whose history reaches back to 1854, when the Texas state legislature created Coryell County and Gatesville grew around Fort Gates.

That civic job carries real weight in a county with 1,052.2 square miles of land area and a 2020 census population of 83,093. Gatesville is the county seat, but the paper’s reach extends well beyond the courthouse square into a broad Central Texas county where Fort Cavazos remains a major force in the region’s economy, with the Texas Comptroller estimating its 2023 contribution at least $39 billion statewide.

Morris has said the best part of the job is meeting new people and documenting the history that makes the community unique. For Coryell County, that means a hometown paper that keeps listening, keeps showing up and keeps filling its pages with the news that residents need to see.