The Big Bend Sentinel has proudly served readers in Marfa and the Big Bend region since 1926. Founded in an era when the cattle industry was thriving, our success has been as rocky as the landscape. We report on local government proceedings, art and community events, and the larger-than-life characters found across West Texas, covering an area larger than South Carolina with a dogged team of three reporters.
Starting in October 2026, The Big Bend Sentinel became a nonprofit newsroom, with a print edition available regularly. Instead of having a single owner, the paper now belongs to the community, who are represented as board members, donors and writers. Your financial and editorial contributions will fuel the newspapers’ success as we work to expand our reporting and future-proof The Big Bend Sentinel for the next century.
The impact of a donation to a nonprofit newsroom is significant. It enables us to keep doing the investigative and accountability journalism that you rely on, and newsstands stocked with the print edition that is vital in an area with limited cell service. Our coverage stitches communities together and unites a region. Over the course of its history, our writers broke the story of the border wall construction and tracked its now-stalled progress. Our reporting has exposed small town corruption, stopped a proposed nuclear dump site in Sierra Blanca, and freed a man from prison in Ojinaga.
A strong tradition of community building has permeated the last 50 years of the paper’s history. Previous owners Maisie Crow and Max Kabat ran the paper alongside a popular coffee shop in Marfa, which continues to sell print copies and merchandise to support the paper. Before them, Robert and Rosario Halpern cultivated an open-door policy in the newsroom, with election results posted on the windows and a pot of coffee available to anyone who stopped by to chat. Our newsroom continues to have an office at The Sentinel coffee shop, and we are still available to trade tips.
Interest in The Big Bend Sentinel extends far beyond the Big Bend region. We are often cited in regional publications and watched by national outlets. The Big Bend Sentinel continues to uphold its responsibility to report on local news and hold leaders into account. It’s a job that’s always hard, and never boring. The stories of the Big Bend are stories that define our families, our region, our great state, and enhance our community’s reach in the world beyond. For 100 years, The Big Bend Sentinel has faithfully and factually brought these important stories to print, and with your help, we hope to make it another century.
Our Board
Billy Arnold
Hilary Beebe
Kate Bubacz:
Fernanda Camarena
Max Kabat
Our Reporters
Rob D’Amico
Sam Karas
Ariele Gentiles
Jenny Pittinger
