Making San Antonio

Joe Carroll Rust

Joe Carroll Rust is a retired journalist living in San Antonio, the largest city in Bexar County, Texas. He was born on the Central Texas farm of his grandfather, a former county commissioner, in 1938, and his family lived in Austin, the state's capital, before moving to San Antonio in 1942.

Rust began his journalistic career at the age of 15, becoming a copyboy for The San Antonio Light, when he was a freshman in high school. He rose through the ranks as general assignment reporter (before he entered The University of Texas at Austin, where he received a degree in journalism), police reporter, courthouse reporter, city hall reporter, political editor, editorial page editor and associate editor. He left the newspaper in two short stints to be the advertising and sales promotion manager for the wholesaling firm of a friend. When The Light closed in 1993 after 112 years of service to the community, Rust went to work as a community relations specialist for the San Antonio Express-News. He retired from that newspaper in the fall of 2001 and now is engaged in media consultation and part-time teaching.

During nearly a half century in Bexar County journalism, Rust had the opportunity not only to observe the tremendous growth of his community, but also to be involved in a variety of community affairs directly relating to this growth. He has been president of the San Antonio Press Club and the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and board chairman for the South Texas Chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the local Easter Seals Society. He served on the boards of the Bexar County Mental Health Association and the Southwest Texas Methodist Hospital, taught news writing briefly at Trinity University and chaired the San Antonio Commission on Literacy, a city commission, for five years.