Burial rites were held Tuesday afternoon in Vienna, Ill. for Ward Burris, publisher of the Gazette Bulletin, who died suddenly at his Parkview Estates home Friday night of a heart attack.  Brief services were held at the Goetz Funeral Home Sunday morning by the Rev. Glen Harbin.  Burial services in Illinois were under the auspices of the Masonic Lodge.  Burris, who was 53 years old on Aug. 16, is survived by his wife Helen ; his mother, Mrs. Laura Burris; and one sister, Miss Beatrice Burris, both of San Antonio.  
    He was born in the village of Mt. Pleasant, Ill. on Aug. 16, 1897, and received his education in Dongola, Ill. and at the university of Illinois.
    He was married to Miss Helen White on May 26, 1926, in Chicago.
    Burris had three careers....teaching school, serving as a sports editor of a metropolitan newspaper and publishing a weekly newspaper.
    He also served as an athletic coach, umpired one season in the Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee League, served two years in World War I and managed the New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce.
    During the first World War, Burris was an aerial gunnery instructor at Kelly Field and later participated in the battles of St. Mihiel and the Argoone Forest.
    Burris mad journalism a full time career in 1927, when he joined the San Antonio Express as an automobile and roads editor.  Three years later, he took over the sports desk and held the position until 1945.
    In 1945, he left the Express and assumed the management of the New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce.  On Feb. 1, 1946, he purchased the Seguin Gazette Bulletin from the W. H. Bryan family.
    During his long journalistic career, he covered most of the big sports events during the era when athletics outgrew its infancy and became big business.
    Burris was a member of the Baptist Church, a 32 degree Mason, a Legionnaire and a Rotarian.  He also belonged to the Elks Lodge and the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Free Masonry in San Antonio.
The Seguin Gazette, August 24, 1950