Oct 2023. Blues Vol 39 No. 10

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESK How it all began. Last month, I promised we’d start celebrating The BLUES 40th Anniversary with the October Issue and by damn it’s October 2023 already. This year has flown by and so has the past 40 years. It seems like only yesterday that a few deputies from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office asked me to consider writing a newsletter for the newly formed Harris County Deputies Union. The union was an alternative to the Harris County Deputies Association, which was pretty much a rubber stamp of what the current administration wanted it to be. Somehow, the conversation led to, “Hey Barron, you have a big mouth and no filter. You should write the newsletter for the Union.” After a few conversations with the Union, I decided if I was going to put my job on the line, I’d better make some money doing it. I had no publishing experience, but the idea of the County Blues came to me while watching the popular TV show “Hill Street Blues.” So, I called a meeting with some of the union reps and my good friend Nat Gutierrez to discuss how I could best serve the needs of the union, while creating an independent publication for myself. We all met at the Humble City Café in downtown Humble in November of 1984, just before Thanksgiving. Of course, everyone had their 6 The BLUES idea of what the newspaper should be, but no one really volunteered to help with it. Nevertheless, a month later Nat and I met at the same Café, and I showed him a rough draft of the first issue. And when I say rough, it was ROUGH. But a week before Christmas, the first issue was ready. It was printed on plain old letter size paper and looked horrible. Sheriff Jack Heard had nothing but praises for it, but as it turned out, he liked it because incoming Sheriff Johnny Klevenhagen hated it. Not only did Klevenhagen hate it, but he also called me into his office a couple of years later and demanded I stop printing it…or else! My union attorney advised ole Johnny that my constitutional rights gave me every reason in the world to ignore his demands and keep right on poking the bear. Score a win for the Blues, not so much for Barron. I was immediately transferred to nights with, wait for it, Mondays, and Wednesdays off. As far as I know, I was the only employee in the history of the HCSO to ever have non-consecutive days off – on the nightshift. But my persistent attorney continued to plead my case and I eventually was given Mondays and Tuesdays off - for LIFE. As the newspaper’s circulation expanded to law enforcement offices all over the State, we eventually changed the name to The Blues Police Newspaper. SGT. MICHAEL BARRON RET It was about that time that I left Harris County and went to work for Sheriff Joe Max Taylor in Galveston. As my publishing and law enforcement careers expanded, I sold The Blues Police Newspaper to G.L “Buddy” Williams, a Houston cop who had been editor of both The Blues and HPD’s Badge & Gun. For the next 30 something years, Buddy did a magnificent job of keeping the tradition alive. Little did I know, that in August of 2018, Buddy wrote a parting editorial and pulled the pin on a tradition that had continued for some 34 years, setting a record for the largest and longest running independently operated Police Newspaper in the State of Texas, and that was that. The Blues had closed and gone peacefully into the night. The following year, a local TV station in Houston contacted me about running a story on the 35th Anniversary of The Blues. “Hey great” I said let me reach out to Buddy and let him know. It was then that I had discovered The Blues had closed, and Buddy had retired for good. Never wanting

to let a good thing go, I decided, what the hell, let’s do a modern version of what The Blues was famous for – entertaining Texas cops. That, my friends, is how the “rest of the story” begins. We reimagined the entire publication. Printing anything in the 21st century was out of the question and Digital was the future. Simply called The BLUES, we created a full-color digital magazine that would launch just before Christmas in 2019. Some 35 years after that first issue hit the streets in 1984. We found a unique hosting site called YUMPU which was based out of Switzerland of all places. But the cool thing was, it converted the entire magazine to a true “digital” format which means every word in the magazine was searchable online. That first issue was only read by 2,893 people. As time went on, we attracted more and more FREE Subscribers and scored the National BOLO list. Before we knew it, we had over 100,000 online readers and subscribers. In July of 2022, we created an International Site in the YUMPU Magazine World and joined the likes of Newsweek, Time, and People, all who hosted on the site. Almost immediately our readership jumped to over 250,000, then 450,000, 750,000 and eventually settled at more than 1.4 million readers a month. That’s more readers in one month then we had in all of 2020. Today, I’m proud to say that The BLUES is the Largest Police Magazine in the World, both in terms of page count as well as circulation. And that is something to be damn proud of my friends. As I said when we started, to produce a great magazine, you must have a great team. It was Police Chief Rex Evans who convinced me creating an all-new BLUES was the right thing to do and as our Editor-at-Large, he has been instrumental in making The Blues the success it is today. Shortly after we began our little journey, I met Dr. Tina Jaeckle who was involved in crisis intervention with Florida Police Agencies, and her involvement since has truly made our magazine a world-class publication with her riveting interviews and feature stories. Tina is now our Senior Editor. And finally, what makes The BLUES the finest police mag on the planet is our monthly columnists that create entertaining and soul-searching content month after month. My brother Rusty Barron with his take on the outdoors and the retired life; Daryl Lott, a retired lieutenant from the Houston Police Department always teaching us a valuable history lesson; Sam Horwitz and John Salerno, former Secret Service Agent and retired NYPD Detective respectively, with their Badge of Honor Column; and finally, Brandon Karr who keeps us up-to-date on the latest Drone Technology. And the two most important people that make sure we don’t &$%# up our words and grammar, our Creative Editor Miss Jessica Jones and Lt. John King, a now retired pilot and lieutenant from HPD and a lifelong-best friend I’ve leaned on since the 4th grade. That’s it. A great magazine and a great team. We hope you enjoy this issue and hopefully another 500 issues in the next 40 years. ENJOY and be safe out there. The BLUES 7