40 - Fourth 'PS' Editor, Hubbard, Dies at 88

PS Magazine staffers, along with fans and friends of the U.S. Army’s internationally acclaimed pioneering publication in the sequential art arena, are acknowledging with regret the death on April 26 of Donald Keith Hubbard, who served as the fourth editor of PS for nearly nine years, from January of 1983 until November of 1991.

Jim Kidd, whom Hubbard succeeded, and I brought Don on board as a writer in July of 1954 when PS was at Aberdeen Proving Ground, in Maryland. He later became production manager. When I left in September of 1963, after serving ten year’s as the magazine’s first managing editor, Don was moved into the managing editor’s slot where he served nearly twenty years until Kidd’s retirement.

In the autumn of 1950, the year before PS Magazine was established, I took the photo below showing Kidd and Hubbard in the School of Journalism booth during Mountaineer Days at West Virginia University.

Kidd, who was a School of Journalism instructor at the time, is at left, manning a lever-operated platen-press. Hubbard, center, is coordinating the handsetting of type for individual’s names in the main headline on a “dummy” tabloid page. I was in my final semester before graduation and working as a fulltime reporter-photographer for the Morgantown Dominion-News.

Hubbard came to PS from Alderson, W.Va., where he was the owner, publisher, editor, Linotype operator, and general factotum for The Alderson Times, which he had purchased after graduating from WVU.

Hubbard was one of three PS editors who had been awarded the Bronze Star for valor during World War II. The others were Jacob Hay, who preceded Kidd, and Kidd, who was twice decorated.

Hay’s medal was for his actions as an intelligence officer. Kidd’s two citations for valor were as a platoon officer in the 69th Infantry Division in France and Germany. Hubbard was a platoon scout with the 44th Infantry Division in France and Germany, and received the Bronze Star and the Combat Infantry Badge.

Don had a higher regard, however, for the Department of the Army Decoration for exceptional Civilian Service presented to him by the Secretary of the Army in the year preceding his retirement.  This highest possible civilian award cited his cumulative efforts with PS from May 1964 to November 1990.

Don was 88. Funeral services and burial were conducted April 30 in Winchester, Ky., where he and his wife, the Rev. Dr. Mallonee Hubbard, resided following his retirement from PS.

—Fitz

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¶ Best of PS by Perspective Instructional Communications

¶ A Covey of Connies—World War II to Today

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