April 18, 2019 500 AM
FAR WEST TEXAS – Robert and Rosario Salgado Halpern have come to an agreement to sell their ownership in The Presidio International and Big Bend Sentinel newspapers to Maisie Crow and Max Kabat.
The Halperns have published the Sentinel for 30 years and the International for 25 years.
The sale will be completed at the end of June, and newspaper offices will move to the former Padre’s building in Marfa, which will now be called The Sentinel.
“We believe that Maisie and Max are a perfect fit to take stewardship of this 87-year-old truly community-involved weekly newspaper,” the Halperns said. “They will continue in the tradition of locally-owned independent journalism that has never been more important.”
Maisie Crow and Max Kabat married in Marfa and moved here in 2016, but Crow’s relationship with West Texas started earlier when her father, a working rancher, began ranching in Jeff Davis County.
Maisie is an Emmy Award winning documentary film director who began her journalism career at community newspapers in Maryland.
She was born and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas and graduated from The University of Texas in Austin with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism. She interned at the Vail Daily in Colorado, The Tico Times in Costa Rica, MediaStorm, and The Boston Globe. During college, she was on staff at the Daily Texan. She attended graduate school at Ohio University and was runner-up College Photographer of the Year. She worked on staff at the Patuxent Publishing Company, a group of 12 weekly newspapers owned by the Baltimore Sun Group. There she covered long-form feature stories as well as local news and sports as a photojournalist and helped establish a multimedia presence for the company. Maisie’s work has appeared in The Intercept, The New York Times, The Atlantic, ProPublica, Esquire Magazine, The Atavist and Virginia Quarterly Review.
Maisie’s work has been recognized with awards from the Overseas Press Club, Picture of the Year International, Society of Professional Journalists, and World Press Photo.
Her most recent film, Jackson, had its television premiere on Showtime and received a News and Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary.
She taught as an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and CUNY Graduate School of Journalism as well as the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.
Max is a co-founder of goodDog, a brand consultancy that helps mostly mid-stage, founder-built, mission-driven companies grow by articulating a singular storyline then bringing it to market.
Prior to goodDog, Max worked in the marketing and advertising fields creating branded experiences and partnerships as well as selling media and sponsorships. Before working on the creative side of business, he spent three years working for and with hedge fund investors on Wall Street. Max attended Lehigh University where he has a Bachelor’s of Science Degree from the College of Business & Economics.
Max has served as the Democratic County Chairman for Presidio County since 2017. To avoid any conflict of interest, Kabat will be stepping down as the Presidio County Democratic Party chair.
“We thank our readers and advertisers who have supported our mission over the years, and to all our reporters, correspondents, photographers, graphics persons, cartoonists, columnists, letter writers and contributors for making the newspapers a dynamic and important part of our lives in Far West Texas,” said the Halperns. “We hope you will show Maisie and Max the same during this exciting change of newspaper ownership.”
