A new scholarship has been created for Daily Texan staff members in honor of Cliff Avery, a long-time supporter of student journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and The Daily Texan.

The scholarship is being endowed by long-time friend Harris Kerr of Austin and will be presented each year to a Daily Texan staffer. Its first recipient will be announced next spring at the Friends of The Daily Texan annual gathering.

Kerr met Cliff Avery in the 7th grade at San Jacinto Junior High in Midland, Texas. Cliff has been his sidekick ever since.

Kerr was Cliff’s roommate when Cliff was the Managing Editor of the Daily Texan and spent time at the Texan offices whenever there was steam to be blown off and beer shared.

Kerr knows first-hand what the Daily Texan means to Cliff. The scholarship honors his best friend by helping maintain the legacy of Daily Texan journalism.

Avery started work for The Daily Texan before he even registered for a class. As a freshman, he won an Outstanding Texan Worker award and over the next three years, he served as associate news editor, makeup editor, assistant managing editor, city editor, features editor and, in fall 1972, managing editor. He also was a member of the Texas Student Publications board.

After graduation, he worked at The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, then returned to his native West Texas, where he worked for The West Texas Times/TimesWest magazine and The Hockley County Free Press. He also worked for the Lubbock ABC-TV affiliate as producer, executive producer and news director.

Answering an ad in Editor & Publisher, he was hired as a general editor for a Time Inc. electronic publishing project in New York City. He rose to assistant managing editor, then moved to Chicago where he served as vice president and editor for Keycom Electronic Publishing, a joint venture of The Chicago Sun-Times, Honeywell and Centel.

When that project became roadkill on the Information Superhighway, he returned to his first love, community newspapering, in an Austin suburb, where he won two Texas Press Association awards in column writing.

He later joined Reference Press, a business research organization. In 1990, he launched his own company. Now known as GCP Association Services, LLC, the successful enterprise provides services — conference planning and support, newsletter publishing, electronic media curating, back-office operations, and day-to-day management — to several statewide associations in Texas. He retired in 2022.

He was the founding president of The Friends of The Daily Texan, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the student newspaper at UT Austin.