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Sue Ann Wood – 2012

Sue Ann Wood was a great reporter who covered thousands of stories, including the sensational kidnapping of six-year-old Robert “Bobby” Greenlease, Jr. in 1953.

She also climbed to the top of the Gateway Arch in 1965 to cover the installation of the final stainless steel wedge to complete the 630-foot-high monument.

Her success as a reporter led to her being named the first female city editor of a major daily, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. She later became just the second woman in the country to hold the position of managing editor at a major daily.

In 1983, Sue Ann moved to the Post-Dispatch, where she served as a highly respected editor until her retirement in 1999.

Antonio Lombardo – 2014

Antonio Lombardo took the helm of Il Pensiero (The Thought), the only Italian- language newspaper in Missouri and Southern Illinois — and one of very few in the U.S. — since 1967. His bi-monthly newspaper served as a mainstay in St. Louis’s Italian-American community for more than 110 years. Published in Italian and English, Il Pensiero helped members of the Italian-American community maintain their strong Italian heritage throughout the region.

Virginia Irwin – 2014

Working for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Virginia Irwin was the first woman reporter to sneak into Berlin to cover the Russian Army’s invasion of the German capital. She reached Berlin three days before Adolf Hitler committed suicide. Unfortunately, her stories were held-up by the U.S. Army for 10 days until after Germany’s surrender on May 7, 1945. The first of her three stories finally splashed across the Post’s front page the next day to the delight of Publisher Joseph Pulitzer II, who rewarded Irwin by giving her an extra year’s pay as a bonus.

Tom Englehardt – 2014

From 1962 to 1997, Tom Engelhardt drew more than 8,000 editorial cartoons for readers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. His creative sketches were always drawn with thoughtful perspective, strong composition, and a wide variety of creative devices to convey a message in support of the Editorial Page. Throughout his career, he always espoused four criteria for good editorial cartoons: The truth, or one side of it; humor; moral purpose; and, good drawings.

Frank X. Bick – 2014

Frank X. Bick was a firm believer in providing neighborhood news to South St. Louis readers. The founder of the Southside Journal, he later merged his paper with the Neighborhood News. After his death, his son, Frank C. Bick, expanded even more into what became the Suburban Journals. The Journals included the Southside Journal and nine other weekly community newspapers that were delivered on every lawn from Spanish Lake to Jefferson County. The Suburban Journal chain was sold in 1984 to Ralph Ingersoll, who sold them to Pulitzer Inc. in 2000.

Sally Bixby Defty – 2013

She joined the Post-Dispatch staff in January 1965, but with no newspaper experience, she started out in the women’s section. After three years there, two as editor, she achieved her goal, becoming the first permanent female member of the city desk staff.

She was a proud general assignment reporter, relishing the variety in doing straight news, features and investigative reporting. For her work on arson-for insurance in St. Louis she received the first of several Pulitzer Prize nominations and was a finalist. She spent a summer in the paper’s Washington Bureau and covered several national political conventions.  She was named executive city editor but stepped down after a year, citing the demands on a divorced mother of three children. She worked several years on the copy desk, enabling her to spend her final three years on the Post-Dispatch going to night school at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, getting a master’s in English, specializing in teaching English as a second language. She took an incentive offer for early retirement in the fall of 1995.