The Malakoff News' first subscriber was Rufus Talmage Griffin, whom editor Ed Brown described as a, "young, progressive citizen always to the fore in matters of public improvements and interest."
Talmage Griffin, as the first subscriber, received the first copy of the newspaper off the press and is believed by his family to have helped with publication of the issue.
Throughout his life, Griffin continued to live up to the description given him by Ed Brown. He was always vitally interested in Malakoff, and although he moved away for many years, he returned to the city after his retirement in 1959 as post master of the Grand Prairie post office.
His greatest vision was to see Malakoff grow into a large and prosperous city, and he spent a great deal of time trying to convince other residents to work for this goal.
Talmage Griffin was a man of definite ideas and opinions and whether right or wrong, stood behind his beliefs with full force. He has been described by those who knew him best as "stubborn as a mule" but very sentimental too.
Born in Mesquite, Texas on March 12, 1895, Griffin was one of eight children of Mr. And Mrs. D. F. Griffin. He served in the U.S. Army and was in France at the time of the Armistice. He served for 30 years with the U. S. Postal Service, retiring in 1959 from the Grand Prairie Post Office. He was a well-known figure in the circles of gospel singing, and had been writing gospel music since 1931. One of his publishers was the Stamps-Bates Music company of Dallas. He had over 100 hymns published in his lifetime.
His wife was Alice Blanche Jones Griffin. The couple had six daughters, one son, 20 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Griffin was a civic minded man and dreamed of the rapid growth of Malakoff. He was interested in the incorporation of the city, was instrumental in establishing a city park, dreamed of residential mail delivery for the city, and was the leader in a program that named and numbered all of the residential streets of the city. Before his death in 1972, all the streets in Malakoff had been named and numbered.
Griffin, with a stout belief in the value of land, did what he could toward the development of Malakoff. He built several homes within the city, and developed the commercial block existing from where Litchfield Grocery is now established to the former Tiger Inn. His final home was built on the site of the early elementary school.
Because of his interest in activities and people, Griffin was a well-known man throughout the area. One of his hobbies was selling greeting cards from house to house, a practice he continued until a year before his death.