Henry E. Banner. One of the live and-widely circulated newspapers of Western Oklahoma is the Hastings Herald, of which Henry E. Banner is proprietor and editor. Mr. Banner is a young newspaper man, but old in experience, and has been identified with the town of Hastings for the past eight years. Most of his early experience in journalism was acquired in the State of Texas, which is his native state.

Born in Waxahachie, Texas, October, 10, 1882, Henry E. Banner is a son of Henry E. and Margaret Dixon (Whitworth) Banner. The Banner family came from Ireland to North Carolina before the Revolution, the emigrant ancestors having been the great-grandfather of the Hastings editor. Henry Banner, Sr., who was born in Salem, North Carolina, in 1860, became a telegraph operator, removed from North Carolina and was employed in his profession in various places in Louisiana and Texas, and was with the Southern Pacific, Texas Central, and other roads. For a number of years he was a dispatcher at Galveston, in 1881 removed to Waxahachie, and in 1890 to Manor, Texas, which was his home at the time he lost his life in an accident at Mount Pleasant in 1891. he was a member of the Knights of Honor and in politics a democrat. His wife, whose maiden name was Margaret Dixon Whitworth, a native of South Carolina, is still living at Manor. Rebecca, the oldest of their children, is the wife of Dr. F. C. Gragg, a physician and surgeon at Manor, Texas; the second is Henry E., Jr.; Adrian is a locomotive engineer with home at Temple, Texas; and Marie Louise is the wife of Frank Gibson, a professional ball player with home at Fort Worth.

Henry E. Banner attended the public schools in Manor, took a course of one year at Grayson College at Whitewright, Texas, but left school in 1900 to enter the newspaper business at Manor as owner and editor of the Manor Free Press. He was identified with that undertaking until 1904, and spent one year on the Houston Post at Houston and one year with the Fort Worth Record. In the fall of 1907 Mr. Banner removed to Hastings, Oklahoma, was employed in the office of the Hastings News a short time, and then leased and operated the rarer until 1909. Selling his lease, he spent a year on the News-Democrat at Waurika, but in 1910 returned to Hastings and established the Hastings Herald. The Herald has a circulation in Jefferson and neighboring counties and is recognized both as an excellent news medium and a molder of public opinion. The offices and plant are in the Oklahoma State Bank Building. In politics the Herald is democratic, which is also the political faith of its proprietor. While in Texas he attended a state convention of the party from Travis county.

Mr. Banner is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and has held various offices in Oak Camp No. 163, Woodmen of the World, at Hastings, and is affiliated with the Ancient Order of United Workmen at Manor, Texas, and with the W. B. A. at Hastings. In 1908 at Hastings he married Miss Ula Walker, whose father, W. W. Walker, is a blacksmith living at Ardmore, Oklahoma. Three children have been born to their union: Ruth, born March 13, 1909; Harlin, March 6, 1911; and Raymond, November 30, 1912.