FOR S.A. EXPRESS-NEWS EDITOR BOB RIVARD: A DEPARTURE WITHOUT HEADLINES OR FANFARE

By Juan Montoya
For those of us who worked with outgoing San Antonio Express-News Editor and Executive Vice President Bob Rivard, his sudden (an announced) resignation from the major South Texas daily leaves many questions unanswered.
The writer met first met Bob when he was a sports writer at the Brownsville Herald in the late 1970s and later at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. I had left the San Antonio Light before he got there and worked as an editor. He later went on to work for Newsweek, along the way reaping a large number of journalism awards that included Headliner awards and Writer and Publisher's first "Editor of the Year" award.
When I was sent by the Brownsville Herald to do a five-part series on Central American refugees in Chiapas who were finding their way to the U.S. -Mexico border, he and his wife were gracious enough to let me stay with them overnight in the Hotel Cortez in Mexico City. Later, when I applied to the Dallas Morning News, they were very supportive of my application and helped me through the process.
Now, Bob can be a von vivant as well as the next guy. I remember when Jerry McHale, myself, and other news types would go to Matamoros (when one could go to Matamoros) and spend the night carousing around the city, a bevy of babes in tow. Later, when we worked together in Corpus Christi, I recall participating in one of the all-night poker games he favored and him telling one of the society page writers that he would win enough money for her to "fart through silk."
He knew all the right quotes from all the right writers.
I don't know, since his departure was so sudden from the Express, what Bob will spend his time doing now, but I'm sure he won't be bored doing it. He never is. When his reporter Phillip True was murdered in the interior of Mexico, he took up the solving of his murder with a passion and adopted his wife and son. That passion eventually resulted din a book and I remember him signing copies at the Brownsville Heritage Museum.

Additionally, he established the Phillip True journalism award in his honor.
Rivard has always been one of a kind, and his departure will leave a gap in the journalism scene in South Texas. I wouldn't be surprised if we spot him in town one of these days.