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St. Louis Post-Dispatch Class of '05
Carolyn Bower
After 30 years in the newspaper business, the last 21 at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Carolyn Bower, 52, is now seeking a master's in education with certification in teaching and reading. In covering schools and preschools for many years, she became convinced how important to success in school and life are the early years. Currently she's working as an intern for three fifth-grade teachers at Glenridge Elementary School in Clayton. She works with students on reading, writing, fractions and algebra and also does playground duty. E- mail: carolynbower@mac.com mailto:carolynbower@mac.com
Pat Corrigan
Patricia Corrigan is one of just two writing workshop leaders in the St. Louis area certified in the acclaimed Amherst Writers & Artists method. The workshops, for writers at all skill levels who want to gain confidence in the craft, are held at several locations around town. Corrigan knows something about writing -- she spent 23 years at the Post-Dispatch and she has written a dozen books, including Chemotherapy & Radiation for Dummies , part of the national series. For more information, see www.patriciacorrigan.com <http://www.patriciacorrigan.com/>, email her at patriciacorrigan@gmail.com <mailto:patriciacorrigan@gmail.com>or call 314-210-2784.
Betty Cuniberti
Everyday columnist Betty Cuniberti is a contributing editor for Golf for Woman Magazine, but after reading about Robert McCormick of Savvis is willing to lap dance at $4,000 an hour (corporate discount available); also seeking consideration for Supreme Court justice. She adds: "Receiving child support and maintenace from a Bechtel employee will take up most of my time."
E-mail:bcuniberti@sbcglobal.net mailto:bcuniberti@sbcglobal.net
Laszlo DomjanLaszlo Domjan is a lifelong news addict. On his recent vacation to Virginia, for instance, he was reading eight newspapers a day, including the Post-Dispatch on-line. He has been with the P-D for 24 years, but actually in the P-D building for 36 years. Laszlo's journalism career began in 1969 with the Globe-Democrat copy desk, which had him working as night makeup editor on the fourth floor of the P-D building. He traded that noisy environment later that year for the clatter of teletypes at the UPI bureau on the fifth-floor of the P-D building. He was a UPI reporter for 12 years, including the last two as bureau chief. Laszlo joined the P-D in 1981 as a GA reporter, specializing in the early '80s in the dioxin panic in eastern Missouri. He went over to the dark side as an editor in 1984, with positions as night city editor, executive city editor (later called metro editor), projects editor, assistant managing editor for national and foreign news, "senior editor for staff and organizational development and interim newsroom administrator" and, for the last four years, night news editor. Other than to enjoy time together with his wife, Louise, Laszlo's post-Post plans remain flexible. But it's a fairly safe bet that he'll continue to keep up with the news. E-mail: ldomjan@hotmail.com <http://us.f804.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=ldomjan@hotmail.com&YY=24769?der=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b>Read Pat Gauen's tribute <GauenonDomjan.htm>to Laszlo at the retiree dinner.
Bob Duffy
E-mail: beeduffy@sbcglobal.net http://us.f804.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=beeduffy@sbcglobal.net&YY=24769?der=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b
Linda Eardley
Linda will never forget the scene when, fresh out of J-School, she reported for her first day of work at the Post-Dispatch in December 1969: Row after row of white men in white shirts sitting at narrow desks, banging on typewriters, smoking cigars, pipes and cigarettes, spitting into spittoons, and yelling "Copy!" for eager copy boys to run their stories to the editors in order to meet the 10 a.m. daily deadline. Linda didn't know it then, but she would soon learn that she was the first woman reporter hired onto City Desk. After a few months of working general assignment, Linda was assigned to work with women writers for the now-defunct Women's Page and Sunday Society Page. In 1972, she returned to the increasingly diverse City Desk where she worked for the next 24 years as a GA and Illinois reporter, education reporter, assistant Illinois editor and fill-in for a variety of day and night editors. During that time, she had two daughters and, for a few years, participated in the first job-sharing arrangement among reporters at the Post-Dispatch. She counts among her most memorable stories: excessive spending by the St. Louis Schools superintendent; mistaken raids by federal drug agents; the murder-for-hire of the highly insured inventor Victor Null; the St. Louis schools desegregation case; and being a part of the on-going coverage of major stories such as the Flood of 1993. Since 1996, Linda has experienced journalism from another interesting angle -- as a features copy editor for the Lifestyle and Food sections and as fill-in Lifestyle editor. Linda says she is grateful for a career that allowed her to inform and entertain readers and that exposed her to so many rich, varied experiences and to such professional, smart, kind and fun co-workers. Her immediate plans are to travel more, volunteer, possibly work in adult literacy, and possibly freelance write and edit. E-mail: leardley@charter.net http://us.f804.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=leardley@charter.net&YY=24769?der=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b
Bill Freivogel
Bill, the outgoing assistant editor of the editorial page, will be the university professor in the Paul Simon Institute for Public Policy at SIU Carbondale and will practice law on the side. wfreivogel@gmail.com http://us.f804.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=wfreivogel@gmail.com&YY=63606?der=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b
Margaret Freivogel
Margaret Freivogel, outgoing Sunday editor will be doing some freelance writing. Phone: 314-965-4131. E-mail: mwfreivogel@gmail.com <mailto:mwfreivogel@gmail.com>Read Margie's farewell <MFreivogelfarewell.htm> to the staff.
Eugene"Gene" Fuhrig
Gene began his tenure at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the same time he began his adult life. At the age of 18 in 1967, he walked through the P-D doors and labored under the watchful eye of city editor Jim Fox. Gene's variety of skills allowed him to assist in many departments including Everyday, engraving, Sports, Business and Metro. Gene's love for tennis landed him in the annual Media Tennis Doubles Tournament where he played side by side with Steve Schiff, Tim Van Galder, Lou Rose, Roy Malone and Larry Fiquette, among others. Gene's steady approach to life's challenges has allowed him to leave the Post-Dispatch sane, sober and satisfied. He plans to pursue a career with fewer deadlines and enjoy life's many pleasures one day at a time.
Terry Ganey
Terry Ganey, Jefferson City bureau chief, has been with the paper since July, 1977. He's now a fulltime reporter for the Columbia Daily Tribune covering the University of Missouri and higher education. E-mail: tjganey@tribmail.com mailto:tjganey@tribmail.com
Aloysia Hamalainen (a.k.a. Ms. Pietsch): Beloved by reporters and feared by telephone repairmen, Ms. Pietsch is only the third office manager since the Post-Dispatch established a Washington bureau in 1919. She joined the bureau in 1976 at the age of 22, when her maiden name was Pietsch and the staff numbered seven reporters, all male. Every desk had a typewriter, of various ages. Copy was sent over the teletypewriter. (Her 1980 thesis for a masters degree predicted that a story could be written, edited, transmitted and placed into the newspaper without ever being typed on paper. No one believed her.) Since then, she has helped non-tech savvy reporters make the transition from typewriters to wi-fi; kept meticulous track of archived bureau stories; and attended/helped set up coverage of every national political convention since 1972, from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush. The biggest advance in the 29 years she's been in the bureau? "I am pleased," she says, "that women are considered a necessary part of the bureau." Pietsch is now working as an appraiser of personal property -- art and horses are her specialty.E-mail: ahamalainen@comcast.net mailto:ahamalainen@comcast.net
Jim Hanselman
Jim Hanselman, who worked at the Post since the dawn of Time, is devoting his retirement to canoeing, fishing, birding and perhaps the occasional game of chance. He is trying his best to cope with this drastic change of direction. In the course of a Post career that began during the Paleolithic Era, Jim worked the copy desk, edited the Everyday section, put together assorted features sections such as the TV book and, for many years, ran the 100 Neediest Cases. This year, as a 100 Neediest reader, he is extremely grateful to have taken the buy-out. Jim and his wife, Charlotte, a librarian, still live in University City. She finds much satisfaction in reading to their two grandchildren. Jim IV does not know that his grandfather has retired, believing him to be an illustrious show business figure, the "Dirt Cheep" chicken. The family understands.E-mail: jhans1@att.net http://us.f804.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=jhans1@att.net&YY=24769?der=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b
Becky Homan
After nearly 26 years at the Post-Dispatch, Becky Homan will miss her readers, her sources and the general topic of home gardening. But we haven't heard the last of her. She's returning to active status as a volunteer with the St. Louis Master Gardeners, has been asked to serve on a not-for-profit board and some committees, is constructing a new Web site and has several writing and photography projects in the works. She won't answer individual how-to gardening questions at her new email address, becky.homan@sbcglobal.net <mailto:becky.homan@sbcglobal.net>(call the Missouri Botanical Garden's answer service, 314-577-5143, for that). But she'll field questions on another subject near and dear to her heart -- nine years of the popular, local home-garden contest. And she's just signed a contract to orchestrate and write six weeks of stories on the 10th annual St. Louis Post-Dispatch Great Garden Contest next year (pdgarden@post-dispatch.com <mailto:pdgarden@post-dispatch.com>is that contest's e-mail address). Read Karen Deer's appreciation of Becky. <karendeeronbecky.htm>
Cleora Hughes
Cleora Hughes has written for Let's Eat since its inception in 2002 and has been a key contributor to the section's success and awards. But her career at the Post-Dispatch goes all the way back to 1964, when she joined the paper as a statistical clerk after studying business and accounting at Harris Teachers College (now Harris-Stowe State University). She subsequently worked in the newspaper's reference library, but she wanted to move into a writing position, so she returned to college, and in 1975 earned a degree in mass communications from St. Louis University.Her writing career has included positions in the calendar, suburban news, travel and lifestyle sections. She began to write about food in 1995, and some of her work will continue to appear in this section over the next few weeks. Hughes plans to devote more time to her extensive volunteer activities, including Girls Inc., the food pantry at Kingdom House, the Federation of Block Units and the downtown homeless ministry of Christ Church Cathedral. E-mail: crhughes519@charter.net <mailto:crhughes519@charter.net>Jim HunterJim's retirement from the Business Copy Desk ends 95 years of continuous newspapering by his family. His grandfather and father were newspapermen in Connecticut, and Jim joined the trend at age 8 or 9 by delivering the Hartford Courant, outstate, and swerving to avoid deer along the way. A graduate of the University of Hartford, Jim joined the P-D in 1980. He counts two notable firsts: the first editor to ride herd on the real estate section and automobile section when they moved from advertising to news. Jim has served as slot on the Business Copy Desk, czar of the stock tables, and received the Allan Merritt Award for excellence in newspaper copy editing. His quiet, competent work in the Business department will be missed. E-mail: jamesedhunter@sbcglobal.net <mailto:jamesedhunter@sbcglobal.net> Bob JoinerBob remembers when he arrived in a very different Post-Dispatch newsroom 35 years ago in a "too loud blue suit from Saks," and "armed with the confidence he could change the world." He's lost the suit but maintains that confidence as he walks out of the newroom today to begin an active retirement providing closed-captioned products for government and industry. In the intervening years, Bob has worked in the Washington Bureau, provided distinguished reporting from Africa, worked on the copy and wire desks and has written hundreds of editorials and columns. He has written with authority and sensitivity about health care, homelessness, the scourge of lead paint, gun control, police brutality, public education, AIDS, famine in Darfur and genocide in Rwanda. In 1991 he won an editorial writing award from the Greater St. Louis Black Journalists Association. He was inducted into the Association's Hall of Fame in 2002 for his lifetime dedication to his profession and to the cause of social justice. Bob has been a quiet but powerful presence across three decades of Post-Dispatch history. E-mail: omegabj@sbcglobal.net <mailto:omegabj@sbcglobal.net>Steve KelleySteve Kelley started at the Post-Dispatch on Nov. 29, 1980, meaning he will have worked at the Post-Dispatch 25 years and 1 day when he retires on Wednesday, Nov. 30. Steve came from the Memphis Press-Scimitar as a golf writer who dabbled in some football coverage. Over the next few years, Skel became a pro football writer (if you can call the Big Red "pro" football) who dabbled in some golf. By the time the Big Red fled St. Louis, Steve had moved to the sports desk as a copy editor and designer. Steve experimented in desktop publishing on the Mac on his own time. His expertise there led him to move to the graphics department. When the newsroom converted from Atex to Harris pagination, Steve spent about a year training each department. During that time, Steve dealt with many of us who had who no idea how to use a mouse. His patience helped to smooth the process. After Harris was in place, Steve became an assistant news editor. He was in charge of turning around the paper on the nights that Princess Di and Mel Carnahan died. Steve helped to oversee a lot of late night coverage on the news desk. Along the way, he developed a morbid fascination with last meals of death row inmates and an uncanny ability of of picking Ghoul Pool winners. Neither of those traits served Steve in his next assignment on the sports design desk. However, his organization, knowledge and level headedness have been major factors in helping our newsroom improve our deadline performance. Each night Skel handles several stories coming through on deadline over multiple pages. He sits in one of the true pressure-cookers on the fifth floor. But no matter what the circumstances, Steve has handled the job with grace, class, wit and a devotion to his beloved Tennessee Vols. E-mail: skel51@earthlink.net <mailto:skel51@earthlink.net>Randy KesslerRandy began working as a copy boy at the Post-Dispatch at the age of 19. Prior to joining the photo department in the early 80's Randy was a clerk for the city desk, the file room, and the St. Charles bureau. He's worked at night since 1975, and was bestowed with the title, "night publisher", by Joseph Pulitzer IV, who worked as a reporter with Randy on the night city desk. If you've ever needed change for a bill, or to break a large bill, more than likely you've visited Randy's bank. He started performing this valuable service for the newsroom in the seventies, when UPI had an office and a coffee pot on the fifth floor. He said reporters wasted time going around looking for change, so he took it upon himself to come to work with a supply of coins and bills. "I like the fact I've been given a lot of responsibility here," he said, "and that people trust my judgment." Randy plans to spend more time with his brother and family in Ohio, and expects to do a lot of traveling. In his job, he's seen photos of all kinds of places from all over, and is now looking forward to seeing some of those places in person.E-mail: rkess@sbcglobal.net <mailto:rkess@sbcglobal.net>Carolyn KingcadeCarolyn has been a Post-Dispatch assistant managing editor for news and the paper's readers advocate. She will use retirement to complete her masters thesis in the spring at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She will test ideas from more than 25 years in the newsroom and is particularly interested in the Post-Dispatch's venture into civic journalism and the reasons behind the civic journalism movement. E-mail: carolyn.kingcade @sbcglobal.net <http://us.f804.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=carolyn.kingcade@sbcglobal.net&YY=24769?der=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b>Rich KrechelRich began his Post-Dispatch career in August 1981. Through the years he has worked on the City Desk, Zones and Features. Most of his career was spent as the fine arts coordinator for Calendar, later known as Get Out. More recently, he has been assigned to the Lifestyle where he's compiled the calendars for Let's Eat and Healthy & Fit, done recipe tests and responded to readers' requests for Let's Eat, and organized the Fairs and Festivals issues for Explore. Over the years, he has done writing for various features sections, including the St. Louis Gourmet column for the old PD magazine, the Help Yourself column for the old Dollars and Sense section as well as features in Get Out and Travel. Rich may even hold some kind of record, with the fact that he has worked every election night in his 24 years, gathering election results from either downtown or the County Election Board. In his spare time, Rich, who loves American musical theater, has produced a series of fund-raising events for charities with cast members from national touring companies of Broadway shows. His next production will be on Nov. 28 with the cast of "Wicked." Obviously, he plans to keep busy during retirement. E-mail: richkrechel@hotmail.com <mailto:richkrechel@hotmail.com>Joan LittleIn many ways, Joan's career at the P-D put the "V" in versatility. She started on July 2, 1978; her first assignment at the St. Charles Post was covering a tractor pull. Since she grew up on a farm near Portage des Sioux, she allows that the assignment was not that great of a stretch. One of her favorite stories was a hot-air balloon ride that was exhilarating -- until the pilot put down in a pasture near Lake Saint Louis and the farmer rode out in a pickup, with the obligatory gun rack, and ordered the intrepid reporter off his land. During her career as a reporter, Joan did a little bit of everything, including working for the St. Charles Post, the South Post, covering the St. Louis city and county police beats, and the St. Louis Public Schools. She also worked City Desk nightside and general assignment, and spent two stints on the News Copy Desk, about a dozen years apart. "I had a great time at the paper," she said. "I got to do things I never would have done and meet people I never would have met at any other job." E-mail: haven1@mindspring.com <mailto:haven1@mindspring.com>
Avis MeyerTwo things you need to know about the bigamist copy editor Dr. Meyer. He's been married to Anna Marie since 1966 and teaching at St. Louis U. since 1972. The first union has kept copy desks fed and happy, and the second has stocked the P-D with hard-to-spell talent for a quarter century, i.e., Frohlich, Chollet, Verkamp, Critchlow, Hathaway, Hasenstab, etc. He's not really a doctor in the P-D style sense, but his deskside manner has soothed and amused the savage deskoids here at least twice a week since January 1983. Just ask Harry Levins, whose teenage Rob would call every Friday night asking permission (ah, those were the days) to go to a particular movie. Slowly Harry would turn . . . Dr. Meyer the Movie Critic held sway, yea or nay? Along the way, the Good Professor saved up comp and vacation days and spent them on sabbaticals -- in 1987 to England, Europe, Russia; in 1997 to England, Scotland and the Continent. More recently Avis and Anna Marie have spent summer weeks in Australia (Avis called the Zones Copy Desk from Sydney) and New Zealand, and this past summer in China. "You know you can only get Chinese food there? I lost 10 pounds!" The travels have produced P-D copy, from Russia to Portugal to Down Under, and he promises the recent China tales will be told soon. He plans to work only one job now, though it's no work at all. He'll hold forth in his SLU classrooms, regaling young editors, reporters, and normal people with tales of the days when editors were editors and the Post had character -- or several of them. Defty, Milner, Yates, Snyder, Canter, Kurtzeborn. Copy editors were giants then.E-mail: meyerae@slu.edu <mailto:meyerae@slu.edu>Bob McCoyWe've known him as the Chicken Man, the Elephant Man (what a memory!), Spaghetti Man and the Doughnut Man. Features copy editor Bob has worn many hats - and costumes - over 31 years at the P-D. Bob blew in off the plains of Nebraska in 1963 and eventually scored a copy editor's hat trick, working in news, sports and features over the years. In 1977, he became the sports department's first executive sports editor. In 1980, he left the PD for a 12-year stint as news editor and columnist at The Sporting News. At both papers, he was
renowned for his encyclopedic recall and attention to detail. "He has the greatest memory of anyone I've ever dealt with in 35 years in the business," says Mr. Stat, John Duxbury of the sports department (and formerly of The Sporting News). "He can remember football scores and World Series scores from 20 years ago." Bob, however, insists his biggest claim to fame was taking actress Sandy Dennis to a football game his freshman year at the University of Nebraska. Dennis went on to bigger fame, winning an Oscar for supporting actress in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" But she didn't forget Bob. He recalls that she referred to him as that "twerp" in a magazine article after she won the Academy Award. Not content to be just the most thorough copy editor on his desk, Bob has pitched in with much comic relief and multiple good-guy deeds over the years. In the '60s, he donned a chicken suit (based on a radio show of the era) and became the PD softball team's only beaked ballplayer. He also carried the torch for Hawaiian music well past its expiration date with an annual Don Ho Birthday celebration at the office. And all along the way, he's made things better for his colleagues. His spaghetti dinners, personally delivered from his Webster Groves Kiwanis Club, always hit the spot for hungry nightsiders. And there were doughnuts for daysiders almost every day. Bob, how will we maintain our editing weight without you? Bob's fondest PD memory: Being named NR (Neal Russo) Products Salesman of the Month in 1974 for selling four Brockabrellas. How can you top that? E-mail: joyzoo@aol.com <mailto:joyzoo@aol.com>John McGuire Since his graduation from Paw Paw High School in Michigan in 1956 and Michigan State University in 1961, John has taken an exciting and fun-filled path that would make any writer envious. Except, of course, for that stint in the Army as a message-center clerk and cryptographer. The former Toledo Blade labor reporter took refuge at the Post-Dispatch in January 1967 after a strike at the Blade dragged on. In the years since, John has written on about every subject for the P-D. He spent time covering financial news and the police beat. And he'll never forget his fifth-place finish in an Associated Press Investigative Sports Reporting contest in 1983 for a series of articles on former University of Missouri football players. Looking through John's clips, one might think John has interviewed just about every celebrity coming through the St. Louis region. In fact, Joe Edwards, the founder of the Walk of Fame and the king of Blueberry Hill, estimates that John has interviewed at least a third of those whose bronze stars are on the sidewalks of Delmar Boulevard. Others of the well-known John has interviewed were actors Eldred Gregory Peck; George C. Scott, and Cary Grant, whom was interviewed by John just days before he died; radio pioneers Robert Hyland, Harry Caray, Jack Buck and Chicago's Paul Harvey; presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy; screen stars, Sophia Loren, Jane Russell and Debbie Reynolds; famed Chicago columnist Mike Royko; TV's Jerry Seinfeld and Irish author, Frank McCourt and author Kurt Vonnegut. Most recently, John this year has chronicled the lives of the dead as Metro's feature obit writer. As such he has told tales of all kinds of folks --- the famous and the not-so-famous, the poor and the well-endowed, none being more endowed than once-famous Evelyn West... and her $50,000 treasure chest. E-mail: ian333@hotmail.com <mailto:ian333@hotmail.com>Gary MuellerIt's hard to believe, but Gary started covering high school sports for the Post-Dispatch long before many of us even got to high school. Gary was hired in 1968 by Sports Editor Bob Broeg to cover preps and got his first break a couple of years later when he became the beat reporter for the St. Louis Blues. His second "break" came five years later when he finally got to have his "new-employee" coffee with Joseph Pulitzer. Maybe Mr. Pulitzer was a prophet. With nearly 38 years of service, Gary was still pretty new after only seven. In 1983 the P-D decided it was time to move into a new era of production. Fortunately, someone thought it was a good idea to have a person with journalism skills and knowledge to help get the new system up and running. So, after shepherding the upstart of TEXT II, ATEX and Harris NewsMaker, Gary has decided to leave the next one for someone else. Gary has been a true source of stability at the P-D and a valuable asset in many, many ways. Be sure to look for him at the new Busch stadium next year, as there's no doubt he'll be around most games. I heard he likes baseball. E-mail: gary.mueller@charter.net <mailto:gary.mueller@charter.net>Ron NortonRon arrived at the copy desk of the Post-Dispatch on Feb. 2, 1970, the day before his 30th birthday. "The thing that immediately got my attention was the noise in the newsroom, with 40 or so reporters pounding out copy on their manual typewriters, shouting into telephones to take dictation from reporters outside the building or conducting interviews. With regularity, a reporter would scream COPY! and a copy clerk would rush over to carry the the story to a city editor." It was quite a change from the Alton Telegraph, The Madison County Daily News, The Southern Illinoisan and the Galesburg Register-Mail, where he'd worked before. Among the jobs in his nearly 36 years in the PD newsroom: copy editor, assistant makeup editor, school edition editor, "war page" editor (news analysis section). He's been an editor on the national/foreign desk (formerly the "telegraph" desk) for more than 25 years, where he's an invaluable spotter of wire stories and a razor-sharp honer of copy. E-mail: Illini99@charter.net <mailto:Illini99@charter.net>Jan PaulAfter 27 years as a reporter and editor at the Post-Dispatch, Jan Paul is moving into totally new field. She's opening a landscape design and consultation firm, Groundbreaking Design LLC from her home in Webster Groves -- strategically located on Plant Avenue. Five years ago, she looked for a new creative outlet and began taking design and botany classes in the horticulture program at St. Louis Community College-Meramec. Now she's hanging up her shingle and plans to design mainly residential landscapes, doing some installation and maintenance, too. Email Jan at janpaul@sbcglobal.net <mailto:janpaul@sbcglobal.net>. Read Dick Weiss's appreciation <DickWeissonJanPaul.htm> of Jan Paul at the retiree dinner.Tom PettitNo more 4 a.m. alarm clocks. No more frozen computer screens as scheduled system maintenance kicks in at 6 a.m. - because "nobody works then." No more waiting for a last-minute feature story from the same stringer every week, or rewriting the headline of a story about a museum exhibit in Florissant so it can fill the vast steppes of the South Post. Tom of the erstwhile Zones empire is leaving us after 22 years of funneling our local copy to the presses. He did time previously at the Arizona Daily Star. Like Rasputin to the Romanovs, Tom has long been a force behind the Post-Dispatch's neighborhood news. Unlike the Russian megalomaniac, Tom is stepping out voluntarily and to the regret of multitudes. Since 1983, Tom has made sure the Post's readers know that somebody here knows that Lindbergh Drive is not the same as Lindbergh Boulevard and that Boonslick is now Boone's Lick; that Collinsville holds a Little Miss Horseradish Pageant at its annual condiment festival; that Jefferson Barracks Park is in south St. Louis County, not Jefferson County; and that star students all wish they could spend an hour with either Jesus or a deceased grandparent. Tom has always set a high fashion standard here at the Post, with a wardrobe that runs heavily to T-shirts emblazoned with the names of his children's high school theatrical productions. His high-mileage vehicles draw the eye of automotive connoisseurs, who once helped themselves to his set of wheels. His mantra of a single, commonplace cuss word is directed regularly at machinery but never at colleagues (with the exception of one coworker who used to be his teacher in the Stone Age and who traded barbs with him daily). Tom's motto: Blame the computer, not each other. As Tom strides into Post history, let us remember this legendary advice from a Zones sports story: "Before the softball tournament begins, every team must turn in a rooster." And no, it did not get into print.
E-mail: tsecorpettit@yahoo.com <http://us.f804.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=tsecorpettit@yahoo.com&YY=24769?der=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b>
Charlene ProstCharlene started at the Post-Dispatch in 1965, an era much different than today. She had a degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and experience writing news stories for a Chicago Tribune-owned newspaper in Florida. She wanted to cover news for the Post. Back then, that wasn’t possible. At the Post, she was told, only men covered news stories. Her beat would be writing for the Today’s Women and Everyday Magazine sections of the paper. That changed several years later when editors wanted a reporter to live incognito at the Job Corps Center for Women and check out complaints about conditions there. They couldn’t send a man. So they sent Charlene. She wrote several stories about her experiences - all front page news stories. Not long after that, she became interested in the "urban pioneers" moving in to help rebuild Lafayette Square and other city neighborhoods, and in preservationists organizing to save the Shrine of St. Joseph, buildings in the Gateway Mall, and other threatened historic buildings. She found her niche. She began writing about urban development, redevelopment, and related issues, and never stopped. Over the years, she’s covered the beginning and progress of projects such as Laclede’s Landing and Grand Center, the revival of Union Station, Cupples Station, Forest Park, and many other landmarks and buildings, big and small. She wrote stories years ago about the sagging state of the riverfront, and downtown St. Louis. They generated public concern and change that’s still evolving. She’s even covered the revival of some places twice - Maryland Plaza, for example, and the Old Post Office downtown. When she also covered cultural institutions for part of her career, she and another reporter investigated and broke stories about the theft of Native American artifacts at the Missouri Historical Society’s museum in Forest Park. As a result, much of the missing art was returned. The Post nominated the stories for a Pulitzer Prize. In this new phase of life, Charlene is enjoying a more relaxed lifestyle and more time at home with her husband, Bill, and Trevor, their White German Shepherd. She’s looking forward to more travel, and more time for reading and playing her piano. And she’s just begun her own redevelopment project. She’s remaking a room at home into an office so she can get back to doing at least some writing again. E-mail: cmprost@charter.net <http://us.f804.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=cmprost@charter.net&YY=24769?der=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b>
Patricia Rice Pat will never forget the day she started at the Post-Dispatch, Jan. 20, 1969. That was the day Richard Nixon was sworn in for his first term as president. Since then Pat's covered everything from the St. Louis Symphony to the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. She's reported from Rome, South Africa, Poland, Germany, France, Mexico, even the top of the Arch. She's covered popes, preachers, politicians and more, interviewing such notables as John Updike, Dennis Hopper Peter O'Toole, Billy Graham and Stan Musial. She was a feature writer in Everyday for 25 years, the religion reporter for 10 years and most recently she was the South County reporter in our Arnold bureau. Pat's written seven books and always has something cooking. Her latest is "A Catholic Funeral,'' a guide to funeral planning. It's available at Amazon.com <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764812912/qid=1135102583/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/102-3709709-1924921?n=507846&s=books&v=glance>. She is also at work on several pieces for magazines worldwide.E-mail: riceink@sbcglobal.net <mailto:riceink@sbcglobal.net>Mailing address: 1223 Locust Street, Suite 800, 63103
Marianna RileyHer last beat at the Post-Dispatch was housing, but before that she wrote about crime and punishment, urban life, wildlife and animal life, science and medicine. She is considering several options for her next life; not least among them is taking more deep breaths and smelling the flowers in the spring and the bonfires in the fall. Or maybe taking up T'ai Chi for the 50th time or taking piano lessons. Or volunteering for a cause that she feels deeply about. Or spending more time with her mother in southern Illinois and her daughters and three grandsons in New York. Or maybe writing an occasional story about something that interests her such as travel around town and beyond, history, preservation, dogs, cats and possums
E-mail: marianna.riley@gmail.com <mailto:marianna.riley@gmail.com>George RichardsonGeorge started at the Post-Dispatch on Dec. 29, 1973. One of George's early jobs then was makeup editor. George would be responsible for overseeing the pasteup and production of the news pages. That job required a cool head and fast feet -- as well as a knack for dealing with colorful characters in the composing room. George was one of our early adapters when pagination brought page makeup to the newsroom. As a news editor George designed and edited the news sections. He also worked on the TMC product, called You, and eventually moved to the Metro Post, where he would do the design and production of up to five sections on a single day. E-mail: gkrichardsonIII@msn.com <mailto:gkrichardsonIII@msn.com>Tommy RobertsonTommy planned to study political science and history at college after graduating from high school in 1966. The Post-Dispatch offered him a scholarship to study journalism at the University of Missouri. At first, he turned them down. But one of the editors, during the interview process, told him that journalism was simply the writing of daily history. "I never forgot that and, for 35 years, that's pretty much what I've been doing -- writing a lot of local daily history,'' Tommy said. Tommy was the Post's first African-American scholarship winner and joined the staff in 1970 as a zones reporter. Through the years, Tommy worked as a nightside reporter and courts reporter and as a reporter in Belleville and West County. In 1990 he went further west, to the St. Charles bureau. For the past 15 years, he's covered just about everything in St. Charles County, with his most recent assignment being O'Fallon and Wentzville. Not a bad career for a guy who wasn't interested in newspapers.E-mail: tr63121@aol.com <mailto:tr63121@aol.com>
Marsha SanguinetteMarsha has worked in almost every facet of the newsgathering operation that included writing, editing and production. She began her career here in the 1970s covering prep sports, becoming one of the first female reporters on the sports staff. Marsha left St. Louis for a while before returning to the city and the Post-Dispatch in 1984. She began her second tour of duty here as a reporter covering real estate issues, then rejoined the sport staff, where she covered high school sports as well as women's professional softball and basketball. Marsha eventually gave up writing to work full time on the sports copy desk, and she also did some design. Marsha later became the copy desk chief, night sports editor, sports editor (in charge of coverage during the Rams' Super Bowl victory and the women's Final Four basketball tournament that came to St. Louis), an assistant sports editor in charge of college sports (she helped set up the coverage of the men's Final Four basketball tournament), and helped launch the Page 2 sports feature earlier this year. Read Vahe Gregorian's appreciation <GregorianonSanguinette.htm> of Marsha. E-mail: msanguinette@earthlink.net <mailto:msanguinette@earthlink.net>Jon SawyerJon has been a reporter in our Washington bureau since 1980 and bureau chief since 1993. His specialty has been foreign policy, providing distinguished reporting from all over the world.
While Jon is leaving the Post-Dispatch he’s not straying far afield. With support from the Pulitzer family he is setting up a center on conflict reporting. Based in Washington, its mission will be to fund independent reporting on international conflicts and to be a model for journalistic practice. Most of Jon’s work will be soliciting and funding reporting projects, and helping them get the widest possible distribution in both old media and new. He’ll do some reporting himself as well, starting next month in Sudan. "My hope is that I can help journalists around the country have the kind of extraordinary experiences the Post-Dispatch made possible for me," Jon says, "and that they can contribute the independent reporting we need to understand the broader world in which we live." E-mail: jonsawyer@comcast.net <mailto:jonsawyer@comcast.net>. Florence ShinkleI started writing for money at the Post-Dispatch in 1970; we had a Sunday Mag. (rotogravure ) where I was on staff. For that section, we did picture layouts and added type to accent mood and meaning already framed by photos: We did miners' strikes and we did spring in bloom in the Ozarks and we did an Illinois woman's relentless fight to retain her title as champion cake baker at the Illinois State Fair. But the pictures usually led the words and the stories ran three and four pages. We also had an Everyday Mag, where we did newsier pieces, often profiles - a three-parter on August A Busch, a two-parter on con artist Nellie Muench, a Dickson Terry special on Plastic Man.The news side may be a bit newsy for me and it sure is tight!. But as a retiree, I intend for stories of people butting heads, preferably over really trivial stuff. I intend to teach a few horseback riding lessons on the hope that I am successful enough to write off some of my critturs' upkeep.And I also intend to look for publishing vehicles that accept too-long profiles and irrelevant pieces of whimsy.
E-mail: shinkle6000@sbcglobal.net <http://us.f804.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=herbgoodrick@aol.com&YY=24769?der=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b> Read Bob Duffy's farewell <DuffyonShinkle.htm> to Florence. Ellen SoeteberEllen Soeteber departs after nearly five years as editor of the Post-Dispatch and 34 years as a journalist, starting out as a night-shift copy boy (cq) at the old Chicago Daily News. Now, she'll try her hand at retirement and see if that sticks. She also has some speaking and coaching gigs lined up at the Poynter Institute and the Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship at the University of Michigan. She will move back to Fort Lauderdale, her home prior to St. Louis. But she and her husband, Dick Martins, plan to keep their St. Louis condo and visit family and friends here regularly.E-mail: ellsoeteber@aol.com <mailto:ellsoeteber@aol.com>.Read Ellen's farewell <Soeteberstatement.htm>statement to the staff.Joe TannianJoe was a seasoned copy editor when he arrived at the Post-Dispatch from the Globe Democrat. At the Globe, he was a noted member of the Illiterati, a group of staff members who met regularly to discuss issues in journalism and, sometimes, drink beer. At the Post, he joined the news copy desk and became assistant copy chief. He went on to features and then became part of Zones, where the esprit de corps was so great that after the Zones operation ended, all of the staff members who could do so promptly retired. Those who work with Joe will miss his professionalism. Here's an example: One Saturday the Zones staff was stumped by a cutline on a photo from an event in Forest Park. They couldn't reach anyone to clear things up. When Joe left work, he drove to Forest Park, checked things out himself, found a pay phone and called in to clear up the confusion and get the cutline right. We'll also miss his unfailing gohumor (yes, even the puns), his sound news judgment and the breadth of his knowledge. We are grateful to him for providing us with lyrics to obscure songs such as "Men of Harlech"; the surefire way to tell if it should be who or whom; and introducing all of us to "Zulu," the greatest British film of the 1960s. In later years, with the days of the Illiterati long behind him, Joe got physically fit, took up bicycling and went on camping and canoe trips with his daughter Kate. He plans to do more of that sort of thing in retirement, as well as work on the "honey do" list of his wife, Trish. He also looks forward to more time to visit daughter Bridget and granddaughter Kate. Joe also will work on a couple of novels he has had the titles for as long as he's worked here (and who knows how long before that): "The 20 Generation Book" and "The Kangaroos of Yucatan." He will donate the profits to the University of Notre Dame.Email: jotann@msn.com <mailto:jotann@msn.com>Judith VandewaterJudy is joining Patrick Davis Partners as a senior associate in the St. Louis office. Art VoellingerArt joined the Post-Dispatch in February of 1973 as a copy editor. In those days, being a copy editor meant doing it all, from layout to organizing hot metal type. Art did all that and more, including a stint in which he organized the entire wire desk. For the past few years, Art's primary role has been as agate processor, mainly because of his work at O'Fallon (Ill.) High. Art, whose late father Elmer Voellinger was a printer in Belleville for more than 50 years, had been a teacher and had coached baseball, soccer, wrestling and tennis in a 30-year career at O'Fallon before he retired in 2002.Art's email: voellinger01@aol.com <mailto:avoellinge01@aol.com>Read Gary Mueller's tribute <MuelleronVoellnger.htm> to Art.Richard K. WeilThe esteemed editor -- journalism's perfect knight -- left the Post-Dispatch in the summer of '04, but the class of '05 hereby adopts him as its own. Dick is currently working on a documentary film featuring his son, Gabe. Release date early '06.E-mail: richard.weil@sbcglobal.net <mailto:richard.weil@sbcglobal.net>Dick WeissAfter exactly 30 years at the Post-Dispatch as a reporter, editor and writing coach, Dick Weiss, 53, is devoting all of his efforts to his private brand, WeissWrite.com <./>. WeissWrite offers workshops, writing, and editing services to business professionals, journalists, students and anyone with a story to tell. His Writing Aerobics workshops begun in 2003 have attracted a strong following among business people in the community. Now he's eager to take his program to companies across the area. Weiss will continue to write articles and books and provide commentary on writing and journalism in print and over the airwaves. Phone 314-725-4233 (office) e-mail: weisswrite@gmail.com <mailto:weisswrite@gmail.com>. Read Dick's remarks <Weissretireeremarks.htm> at the retiree dinner.
