The Huntington Herald was first started in 1911 (Orinally the "Huntington Messenger") when the town was first beginning to thrive.  After years without a newspaper it was rebooted in 1991 by the late Jackie Kunkel and her daughter Karolyn Klaes.  For the last few decades it has successfully been kept a free, family owned newspaper for the community, written by the community and paid for by the business community.  The paper is released once a month on the 1st.

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When the mother-daughter team rebooted the Huntington Herald in 1991 it was a small magazine-type layout, with a couple of local advertisers and only a few pages. Circulation was very small and the news only covered the Huntington area.  The duo worked out of their home office on the outskirts of town to create and distribute this young newspaper all while taking care of their ever-growing family.  Finding advertisers, hand making the layout and even writing a large number of the articles was only half the job.  The first of each month, regardless of rain or shine, they would load freshly printed papers into their cars and deliver each bundle by hand to businesses around Huntington.  Now, the paper is a much larger, fold-out newspaper with 12-16 pages per month. Printed circulation has grown into the thousands and covers local news and happenings in Huntington, Zavalla, Homer, Etoile, Broaddus, and every place in between.  The many talented writers are all local, volunteering their services to keep this publication free to the public.  The advertisers are what pays for the printing of this paper.  This is a true work by the community for the community.

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Jackie Kunkel retired as the Publisher/Chief Editor in 2009 and passed away in 2018.  Her daughter, Karolyn Klaes, immediately took over the position after having taken time off to run her own local business.  She immediatel set work to expand the newspaper beyond Huntington.  With a lot of hard work and help from the community she quickly broke this little newspaper out of its comfort zone. Since her take over in 2009 the paper has expanded to Zavalla, Lufkin, Etoile, Homer, Broaddus, and other small communities.  Despite the expansion of the area Karolyn still loads the paper up each month and hand delivers the bundles to businesses and mails individuals to those who live too far out to get a copy.

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Keeping up with technology and wanting to give more exposure to the area’s talented writers and the local businesses within, the Huntington Herald went online in November 2013.  The decision to follow the online tread was to help the many locals who might be unable to get into town to gather their copy or were unable to pay a subscription fee.  The newspaper can now be read either way.  Not only can the actual newspapers can be found in various restaurants, local businesses and grocery stores throughout southern Angelina County but now the newspaper can also be viewed in it’s entirety, through this web page.

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Please remember as you are enjoying this newspaper…..this is a free paper that is made available to you by the local businesses that advertise in it. Without these advertisers, there would not be a free community newspaper. We need to support the local businesses. Please let them know just how appreciative you are of them. SHOP LOCAL and keep this newspaper going!