Tom Shuford, a onetime Denton journalist whose passion for the craft guided his career as a writer, professor and First Amendment advocate, died Sunday at his home in Marfa.

Tom Shuford

He was 63.

Shuford, who started his career in the 1960s at the Denton Record-Chronicle, had battled cancer, friends said.

Known for his strict, no-nonsense style, Shuford taught journalism for nearly 30 years at the University of Texas at Arlington and served a stint as director of the Texas Freedom of Information Foundation.

“He was a champion of journalists,” said Keith Shelton, a longtime Denton newsman and secretary of the foundation. “He was very intense about journalism and, in particular, the rights of journalists.”

Friends and colleagues said Shuford inherited his intensity and love of journalism from his father.

C.E. Shuford, a writer and professor, founded the journalism department at the University of North Texas in 1945 and taught the craft to generations of reporters.

“He grew up in the midst of journalism and absorbed it like a sponge,” Shelton said of the younger Shuford. “I think he was always trying to live up to the standards set by his dad, but he also had his own standards.”

Shuford graduated from Denton High School in 1962 and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from UNT, then North Texas State University, in 1966.

After working as a writer and copy editor at the Record-Chronicle, Shuford went on to report for a variety of other pub­lications and author a short-stories collection and guides on media law.

He also taught journalism at Tarleton State University, UTA and UNT before retiring to West Texas.

Roy Busby, a regents professor of journalism at UNT, said that he knew Shuford both as a child and, years later, as a colleague.

“He was very demanding in the classroom, but that’s a chip off the old block from his dad,” Busby said.

But Mitch Land, interim chair of UNT’s journalism de­partment, said Shuford also had a softer side.

“Tom was a very kind man and very much a role model because he was a man of high moral character,” Land said.

“He had some big shoes to fill,” he added, “and he did pretty well.”

Funeral services for Shuford were scheduled for today in Marfa.

His survivors include six children as well as eight grandchildren.

Alpine Memorial Funeral Home is in charge of the ar­rangements.

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com.