 Barbara
Payne
Barbara Payne is Managing
Partner of Water Lily Press,
Inc. and President of Payne
Communications. In a
communications career that now
spans four decades, she has
specialized in translating
complex and/or technical topics
into consumer language in three
critical arenas. During the
1970’s and early 80’s she worked
in the energy industry;
in the late 1980’s, she
specialized in medical
communications; and since the
mid-1990’s, she has focused on
water topics.
She started her public relations
career in 1970 with the American
Petroleum Institute in
Washington, D.C., the national
trade association for the oil
industry. During the 1973-74
Arab Embargo, Barbara was the
oil industry’s spokesperson on
radio and television talk shows
across the country. She wrote,
narrated and appeared in
documentary films about oil
industry operations -- including
offshore drilling, energy
conservation, and the
construction of the Alaska
Pipeline -- which were all aired
on national television.
Barbara came to Houston in 1975
as Director of Consumer Affairs
for Gulf Oil Corporation where
she created a national energy
education program for elementary
grades and a unit on consumerism
for the high school level. She
testified before the U.S. House
Government Operations Committee
as Gulf’s representative
opposing legislation to create a
Federal Consumer Protection
Agency.
During the late
1980's, Barbara shifted to
medicine, and consulted with
northwest Houston medical
facilities and prominent
physicians. She hosted the KSEV
radio talk show, DOCTORS ON
CALL; was the editor of
ON CALL magazine; and wrote
a weekly column -- Medically
Speaking -- for Sun Newspapers.
In a joint venture with The
Texas Network, Barbara wrote and
edited an award-winning
cyber-magazine, Your Family's
Health.
Today, she serves as
Communications director for the
North and West Harris County
Regional Water Authorities, the
North Fort Bend Water Authority.
The Harris-Galveston Subsidence
District, the San Jacinto River
Authority, The Woodlands Joint
Powers Agency, and a growing
number of water-related
businesses and utility districts
are also among her clients.
In 2004, Harris
County Commissioners Court
appointed Barbara as a Harris
County Emergency Services
District #11 Commissioner, and
she served as President of that
board for four years. When an
opportunity for travel occurs,
she and her husband, Jim, head
across the pond to England or,
for shorter escapes, to the
Texas Hill Country.
 Hugh
Wynn
Hugh
Wynn is the Chief Financial
Officer for Water Lily Press,
Inc. a Houston-based company
that specializes in water
conservation education program
development and publishing.
After a distinguished career in
oil and gas, Hugh authored
several historical fiction
novels, including West of the
Cross Timbers, a
frontier/western which recounts
the tragic demise of an
indigenous way of life in North
Texas. He is also the author of
Laundry List, a suspense
novel about money laundering
strategies; The Generation-X
Files (Dare to be Average),
a financial primer; and The
Mormon and Mr. Sullivan,
based on the infamous Southern
Utah Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Wynn wrote and narrates the
Texas Rivers DVD
presentation featured in the
curriculum, TEXAS WATER –
Origins and Destinations,
created by Water Lily Press,
Inc. The TEXAS WATER
curriculum provides hands-on
instructional projects for
Science and Social Studies
classes in grades 3-6.
Wynn is the
author of the Texas Frontier
Series of DIME NOVELS provided
for students as part of the
TEXAS WATER educational
program. Hugh draws on family
history for these stories; he is
a direct descendant of Amanda
Genareo Wynn, wife of G. A.
Holland, who was first elected
Mayor of Weatherford in 1932.
Holland assembled the Double Log
Cabin for the Old Settlers and
Half-Century Club that is now a
museum of Texas Frontier days.
In the mid- to late 1880’s
Weatherford was the
end-of-the-line for the Texas &
Pacific Rail Road, and this is
where the Sullivan family
started their new life in Texas
discussed in Wynn’s first Dime
Novel.
He and his wife,
Carolyn, have long been active
in university scholarship
programs, endowing several
Presidents’ Distinguished
Scholarship Trusts at their alma
mater, OSU. Wynn served on the
OSU Foundation Board of
Governors for many years.
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