Wick Allison

Lodowick Brodie Cobb "Wick" Allison (March 17, 1948 – September 1, 2020) was an American magazine publisher and author. He was the owner of D Magazine,[1] a monthly magazine covering Dallas–Fort Worth, which he co-founded in 1974. He was also the principal owner of People Newspapers,[2] which he purchased in 2003. He served as president of the non-profit American Ideas Institute,[3] publisher of The American Conservative.[4]

Wick Allison
Born
Lodowick Brodie Cobb Allison

(1948-03-17)March 17, 1948
Dallas, Texas, U.S.
DiedSeptember 1, 2020(2020-09-01) (aged 72)
Roscoe, New York, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of Texas at Austin
OccupationPublisher, author
Years active1974–2020
OrganizationPeople Newspapers
Notable work
D Magazine
Spouse(s)
Christine Peterson
​
(m. 1983)​
Children4

Personal life

Allison was born in Dallas, Texas, on March 17, 1948.[5] He was a sixth-generation Texan.[6] He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1971. He served as editor of the student humor magazine The Texas Ranger and earned a degree in American Studies. Upon graduation, he served in the White House on the President's Commission on Campus Unrest and subsequently joined the United States Army. He attended the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University, where he developed his business plan for D Magazine before dropping out.[5]

Allison married Christine Peterson in 1983.[7] Together, they had four daughters: Gillea, Maisie, Chrissie, and Loddie.[5] Chrissie was born with Down syndrome; although doctors warned that she would need to be institutionalized, Allison and his wife insisted on taking her home.[8]

Allison died on the night of September 1, 2020, at his home in Craigie Clair, in the Catskill Mountains. He was 72, and suffered from bladder cancer for more than a decade before his death.[5]

Career

Magazine publishing

Allison co-founded D Magazine – a monthly magazine covering Dallas – in 1974, with backing from Dallas investor Ray Lee Hunt.[9] He and a group of investors purchased Sport Magazine in 1981, which they subsequently sold three years later. He proceeded to found and publish Art & Antiques in 1984.[10] A year later, Allison was asked by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of directors of the National Review, and went on to become its publisher in 1988, succeeding William A. Rusher. In 1981 or 1982 Allison sold his company Allison Publications, publisher of Art & Antiques. He resigned as publisher of National Review in 1993. Two years later, he and investor Harlan Crow repurchased D Magazine,[5] and in 2001, Allison bought out Crow to become the magazine company's sole owner.[11] Allison edited a new edition of The Bible To Be Read As Living Literature, published by Simon & Schuster in 1993.[12] He was also the author of That's In The Bible? (Random House, 2009)[13] and co-author of Condemned To Repeat It (Viking Penguin, 1998).[14]

In February 2013, Allison launched D: The Broadcast,[15] a two-hour daily morning talk show, on local Dallas independent station KTXD, but the magazine ended its affiliation with the show in August of the same year.[16]

Political views

In September 2008, he published an article in D Magazine entitled "A Conservative For Obama", in which he endorsed then Senator Barack Obama for president.[17] In May 2011, he recanted the endorsement citing "serial disillusionment" with the two major US political parties.[18] However, in September 2012, Allison told The Daily Beast, "I will probably vote for Obama, unless I have a Gary Johnson-inspiration in the voting booth. (My vote in Texas is wasted anyway) ... Romney is the opposite of conservative, with a plan that is fiscally reckless and a foreign policy that is unnecessarily militant. Obama has done about the best that could have been done, considering the united GOP opposition in Congress. My questions about Obamacare and my disappointment that we are not already out of Afghanistan are not enough to make me embrace a candidacy that even George W. Bush would have been repelled by—and, having had time to reflect on his own record, perhaps is."[19]

References
  1. "Wick Allison, Author at D Magazine". D Magazine. Retrieved March 10, 2019.
  2. "Wick Allison to Speak at PHPC | Park Cities People". Retrieved March 10, 2019.
  3. "Learn About Wick Allison from Dallas, Texas, US". www.crowdfunder.com. Retrieved March 10, 2019.
  4. Rod Dreyer (September 11, 2014). "You Need Us, We Need You". The American Conservative.
  5. Tarrant, David (September 2, 2020). "Wick Allison, publishing entrepreneur and founder of D Magazine, dies at 72". The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved September 2, 2020.
  6. Schutze, Jim (May 15, 2014). "How D Magazine's Wick Allison Changed His Mind on the Trinity Parkway". Dallas Observer. Retrieved March 10, 2019.
  7. "Marie J. Peterson, 1924 - 2014". Iohud.
  8. Dreher, Rod (August 12, 2014). "On Learning Your Unborn Daughter Has Brain Damage". The American Conservative. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  9. "How I Learned to Hate the Media And Love Politics (Well, Sort of)". Texas Monthly. March 1, 2001. Retrieved March 10, 2019.
  10. Lueck, Therese (1995). Women's Periodicals in the United States: Consumer Magazines. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313286315.
  11. Heid, Jason (September 2, 2020). "Remembering Wick Allison, Founder of D Magazine, a Fierce Critic and Champion of Dallas". Texas Monthly. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  12. Bates, Ernest Sutherland; Allison, Lodowick (1993). The Bible, Designed to be Read as Living Literature: The Old and the New Testaments in the King James Version. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780671879594.
  13. Allison, Wick (October 21, 2009). That's in the Bible?: The Ultimate Learn-As-You-Play Bible Quiz Book. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 9780307574046.
  14. Allison, Wick; Adams, Jeremy duQuesnay; Hambly, Gavin (1998). Condemned to Repeat it: The Philosopher who Flunked Life and Other Great Lessons from History. Viking. ISBN 9780670859511.
  15. "Wick Allison | Art&Seek | Arts, Music, Culture for North Texas". artandseek.org. Retrieved March 10, 2019.
  16. Rogers, Tim. "D: The Broadcast, R.I.P." D Magazine. Retrieved May 26, 2014.
  17. Allison, Wick (September 18, 2008). "A Conservative for Obama". D Magazine. Retrieved December 11, 2009.
  18. Allison, Wick (April 20, 2011). "The One-Party Nation: Why I am recanting my 2008 endorsement of Barack Obama". D Magazine. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
  19. Heid, Jason. "Wick Allison Tells Daily Beast That Mitt Romney is the Opposite of a Conservative". D Magazine. Retrieved November 29, 2012.
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