About Vickie Griffith Hawver
Vickie Griffith Hawver is the co-owner and managing partner of Hawver News Co LLC.
Vickie, a Topeka native, wrote for newspapers at Holliday Junior High and Topeka High School. She graduated with a degree in communication arts with emphasis in journalism and a minor in sociology from Washburn University where she was the editor of the Washburn Review her senior year.
She worked at the Topeka Capital-Journal for 17 years, starting as an intern while in college. She covered general assignment and the police beat and filled in as city editor on Saturdays. Then she covered the health beat during her last 10 years at the C-J, where she reported for the daily paper and wrote, edited and designed a three-page Saturday health section.
Vickie left the newspaper in 1991 to start Hawver News Company, a writing/editing business. Her services included newsletters, press releases, editing and communication consulting. When her husband, Martin Hawver, joined in 1993, the company created Hawver’s Capitol Report, which eventually became its main product. Martin was the primary reporter/writer while Vickie handled editing, publication design/production, ad sales, subscriptions, and some writing.
For several years, Hawver News produced a monthly magazine called Hawver’s Capitol Health.
The Hawvers sold Hawver’s Capitol Report on Dec. 16, 2022, and this fall will start a new publication, Hawvers’ Still Booming.
Vickie is a past president of the Junior League of Topeka and Topeka Press Women, a 1996 graduate of Leadership Greater Topeka, and has served as an adjunct instructor in Washburn University’s mass media department.
About Martin Hawver
Martin Hawver retired as the dean of the Kansas Statehouse press corps in the fall of 2023, after having covered 47 legislative sessions, 17 for the Topeka Capital-Journal and 30 for Hawver’s Capitol Report. At the time of his retirement, he had covered the Kansas Capitol longer than any other current reporter.
Martin attended Topeka public schools and Washburn University (for a time), including a stint as the Washburn Review newspaper editor. As a kid, he threw the Topeka State Journal, the city’s evening newspaper, from his bike, and as a teenager got a job as a copyboy at the Topeka Daily Capital, the morning newspaper. He worked his way up to a copy editor job, then became a general assignment reporter and Saturday city editor before moving to Statehouse coverage for what became the combined Topeka Capital-Journal.
In May 1993, Martin was hired by his wife, Vickie Griffith Hawver, a former C-J reporter who had left the newspaper and founded Hawver News Company in 1991, where she provided communication services to private clients. Martin became co-owner of Hawver News, with Vickie as co-owner/managing partner, and they began producing Hawver’s Capitol Report in June 1993. After a few years, it became their major product. Martin was the primary reporter/writer while Vickie handled editing, publication design/production, ad sales, subscriptions, and some writing.
Hawver’s Capitol Report provided news and insider analysis about Kansas politics and government, as well as the popular HallTalk and Capitol Rail features. Martin loved covering the Statehouse, saying it was the best job you could ever have. Martin also wrote a statewide syndicated column called At The Rail, and he was referred to as The Railster – among newsmakers and political insiders who regularly congregated at the Capitol’s third floor rail to dissect what really was happening on either side of the rotunda in the Senate and House.
The Hawvers sold Hawver’s Capitol Report on Dec. 16, 2022, and this fall will start a new publication, Hawvers’ Still Booming.
Martin covered 16 national Republican and Democratic conventions for the C-J and Hawver’s Capitol Report, and countless statewide and local political conventions, plus he provided informative and fun speeches to a number of organizations.
One former legislator said of Martin’s reporting and analysis: “Your sense of humor is sauce on the goose.”