Halls of Fame

Richard Weil – 2013

His career spanned 42 years as a newspaper reporter and editor  – 11 years at the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, MA., and 30 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  He joined the P-D at the end of 1973.  In his years on the City Desk and as an assistant managing editor, he put a heavy emphasis on investigative reporting, overseeing many major investigative series. He also was in charge of Sunday edition for many years.

In 1996, Richard was appointed managing editor and was credited with keeping the newsroom on an “even keel” during a period of management upheaval. Three years later, Weil became executive editor.  He finished out his newspaper career as editor for investigative projects.

He retired in the summer of 2004, but within a couple years he came out of retirement as one of the founders and board president of the St. Louis Beacon, a not-for-profit online news source, which began publication in 2008. In December of 2013, the Beacon merged news operations with St. Louis Public Radio.

Pete Rahn – 2013

Pete Rahn entered the field of print journalism at the age of 15 and stayed in the business at the Globe-Democrat for almost 49 years. His first job was junior financial copy editor for the Globe. In the late 1940s, editor Richard Amberg assigned him the job of creating and editing the paper’s television guide, making the Globe one of the first newspapers in the nation to publish one. Rahn expressed pride in being the first to include detailed descriptions of movies to be televised. He soon started writing columns about TV on his own and, over the course of several decades, wrote over 7,000 of them and interviewed scores of the medium’s personalities. He received the Board of Governors’ Emmy Award from the local chapter of NATAS.      

Don Hesse – 2013

If St. Louisans grew annoyed with the liberal editorial cartoons in the Post-Dispatch, they would be delighted by turning to the Globe-Democrat’s editorial page.  From 1951 to 1984 that cartoon spot was held by Don Hesse, one of the most gifted draftsmen and conservative editorial cartoonists in the country.  His simple, loose pencil technique was sublime and his political viewpoint was always direct and forceful. Having been honored by the Freedoms Foundation, the American Legion and the National Headliners Club, Hesse gained a national reputation and following. It could even be said that changed he changed Republican Party history.  For it was a 1965 party at Hesse’s Belleville home that he introduced his friend Richard Nixon to a young Globe editorial writer – Pat Buchanan. 

Hesse started his career at the Belleville News-Democrat and joined the Globe as a staff artist in 1946 before moving to the editorial page.  He returned the News-Democrat in 1984.  His work was nationally syndicated by the Los Angeles Times and the McNaught Syndicates.

Ralph Graczak – 2013

Joseph Pulitzer Jr, came to to Post-Dispatch staff artist Ralph Graczak in1940 with an idea for a new comic strip.  Pulitzer thought everyone should have their name in the newspaper at least once, and a good way to do it was with a cartoon similar to Ripley’s Believe it or Not.  St. Louis Oddities was born, later to become Our Own Oddities, and became, along with its artist, one of the most widely read and beloved features in St. Louis journalism history.  Graczak received hundreds of letters a week, submitting the likes of gourds shaped like Richard Nixon to talking dogs, and he personally verified each of them.  The strip lasted until 1990. Graczak was a brilliant illustrator. His caricatures of celebrities often highlighted the Everyday section and TV book and were much admired by fellow artists, including then-colleague and Hall of Fame member Bill Mauldin  Another local neigborhood cigar-smoking young cartoonist was Hall of Fame member Amadee Wohlschlaeger, who convinced the young Gracak to quit the Katy Railroad and join the Post. Graczak retired from the Post in 1980.

Carl Schurz – 2011

Carl Schurz was a Civil War brigadier general who founded several papers, including the Westliche Post (Western Post), one of St. Louis’ German newspapers, where he hired Joseph Pulitzer as a cub reporter. Schurz was a leading member of the Republican Party and in 1860 campaigned for Abraham Lincoln in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. After the election, Lincoln appointed Schurz as U.S. envoy to Spain. Schurz became the first German-born American elected to the U.S. Senate in 1869 and later served as Secretary of the Interior in President Rutherford Hayes’ administration. After leaving office in 1881, Schurz returned to journalism and became managing editor of the New York Evening Post. He also wrote for Harper’s Weekly, The Nation and had several books published including, “The Life of Henry Clay” (1887) and “Abraham Lincoln” (1891).  Schurz is famous for saying, “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”

Ray Hartmann – 2010

Although his first job out of college was working as a newspaper reporter in New York, Ray Hartmann hit his stride after returning to St. Louis. In March of 1977, at the age of 24, he founded Hartmann Publishing and its initial publication, Profile St. Louis. Within months, that paper was dropped and the Riverfront Times was born. Under his ownership, the RFT became one of the ten largest alternative newsweeklies in the nation, and it was twice named Missouri’s top news weekly. He sold the paper and bought St. Louis Magazine, where he served as CEO. Ray was showered with local and national honors, and he was also a popular member of the weekly panel on “Donnybrook” on KETC-TV.