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Hicks Media LLC and The Clarendon Enterprise today announced the sale of The Red River Sun to Roger and Ashlee Estlack of Clarendon.

The sale brings the Sun under the management of the Texas Panhandle’s oldest newspaper although the two papers will continue to be separate publications.

The Red River Sun covers Childress, Collingsworth, and Hall Counties and combines the heritages of The Childress Index, The Wellington Leader, and the Memphis Democrat / Hall County Herald.

Although the sale of the Sun did not become finalized until December 30, the Estlacks took over management of the paper December 1, 2025.

“We’re excited for our family to become more active in our neighboring communities, and we look forward to working with Managing Editor Elizabeth Tanner in Childress, Associate Editor Bev Odom in Wellington, and their staff to continue providing strong local journalism to the Greenbelt of the Texas Panhandle,” publisher Roger Estlack said.

“We appreciate what Mark Hicks has done for the Sun and for the community. He has been so gracious and helpful during this sale and transition, and we also want to thank our intrepid new staff for their helpfulness and dedication as well. This new chapter for the Sun has also been made possible by the support of the Childress Municipal Development District and the Childress Chamber of Commerce. The MDD and Chamber boards, led by Sheabree Nix and Susan Leary, have been a pleasure to work with, and we appreciate their support and their faith in this newspaper.”

The two papers carry a long heritage of covering local news in the southeast Panhandle, and the Estlack family plans to build on that foundation to serve the readers and advertisers of the area.

“The Higleys, the Wells, the Combs – those families were all contemporaries of our family, and they all shared a commitment to serve their communities,” Estlack said. “History is important to us, but so is working for the future.”

The Estlack family has 75 years of publishing history in the Panhandle, printing The Donley County Leader from 1929 to 1974 before Roger purchased the Clarendon paper in 1995. Ashlee joined the paper in 2002 and continues to be involved in the business as a contributing editor. The couple’s children – Benjamin, a junior at Texas Tech University, and Elaina, a junior at Clarendon High School – have grown up in the newspaper business and continue to help.

Sun readers will notice a slightly different size to the newspaper starting with the January 2 edition as printing moves from Lawton, Oklahoma, to Shamrock, Texas. Other changes will come in the next few weeks and months as the papers become more familiar with each other’s operations and determine where functions overlap and can be made more efficient.

“We will be redesigning both the Sun and the Enterprise. You will see the classified pages combined to give broader coverage for advertisers, and we will be exploring areas where we can expand or improve coverage,” Estlack said. “Liz and Bev are doing a great job for us. We want to support them all we can, make their jobs easier where possible, and be able to cover more local news in the Greenbelt area.”

Deadlines for the Sun remain unchanged at this point. Advertising policies and subscription rates are all being reviewed, and the Sun’s digital footprint will be examined as well.

“We remain committed to the printed newspaper, but our family has long realized the importance of digital communications for today’s readers,” Estlack said. “One of Ashlee’s specialties is social media, and we like to think of our business not just in terms of print circulation but overall audiences – print subscribers and digital subscribers as well as website and social media readers.”

The Estlacks also ask the communities for their support of the newspaper.

“A strong newspaper is an indicator of a vibrant and growing community,” Estlack said, “but we need your help to continue the tradition of local journalism and make it even better. We welcome your suggestions for changes, but we can’t do anything without the support of readers buying subscriptions and local businesses and organizations advertising with us. We want to work together to make our region the best place it can be for families and for business.”

State Rep. Ken King (R-Canadian) reviewed the accomplishments of recent legislative sessions when he visited Clarendon last Tuesday for a town hall meeting at the Bairfield Activity Center.

King, who chairs the State Affairs Committee, said the Legislature was faced with about 9,000 bills this year with 700 of them coming through his committee.

“There’s not 700 good ideas in Austin,” King said, “so that’s a really good committee to represent you.”

One of the bills King was particularly proud of was a rural health care bill that provides grant funding for ambulances in rural areas.

“Rural health covers 89 percent of the state,” King said.

Some of his urban colleagues were not strong supporters of the bill, King said, until he asked if they ever traveled to Colorado. He told them if they have an accident on the highway, without support for rural health care, “there’s no one coming to help you.” The bill passed and was signed into law.

Donley County Judge John Howard and Donley County Hospital District Administrator Anna Howard were both at Tuesday’s meeting to personally thank King for his support of the bill that will allow counties with populations under 10,000 may receive up to $500,000 for new ambulances.

Rep. King also discussed his work to require electric utilities to have wildfire mitigation plans, which will help reduce the likelihood of bad power poles starting wildfires in high winds. In 2024, King said about 80 wildfires were started by electric powerlines. In 2025, King said that number dropped to eight, largely because utilities now deenergize powerlines during high winds.

King also worked to provided $197 million to fund a backlog of grants for equipment for volunteer fire departments. Money has also been allocated to allow the state to secure or contract aircraft for fighting wildfire on its own instead of relying on the federal government.

“During the Smokehouse Creek Fire, we didn’t get planes for four days,” King said.

King wants to continue to work to help first responders and disaster preparedness by addressing issues of interoperability to allow for better and faster communications between agencies.

King also addressed new funding for water projects to prepare the state for the future and discussed carve-outs in that program to make sure rural communities have access to funding. He briefly addressed concerns some citizens have about the water usage of AI datacenters now in development in West Texas and the Panhandle. King said everyone needs to be cautious about calls to restrict water usage.

“The worst thing that can happen is for Austin to start making restrictions on water usage,” he said.

King also said the power production installed by AI datacenters and new nuclear plants will eventually result in a power surplus in the state that will benefit electric rate payers.

King talked about the how the state has used budget surpluses for several things in the last session. He said a lot of that money was still COVID relief money and won’t be coming back, so future state budgets will have to deal with that reality.

He briefly talked about social issues and some of the actions taken by the legislature but also noted that “I’ve never seen us be able to legislate good behavior or morality.”

There were very few questions or comments from the audience on Tuesday. One person asked about school vouchers. King said he doesn’t think the new voucher program will help anyone in his district.

“It’s a billion dollar entitlement that will help less than five percent of the people,” he said.