Roy J. Harris – 2016
Roy J. Harris joined the Post-Dispatch in 1926 after a brief stint at the St. Louis Star, and during his 41 years at the Post, his work helped bring the paper four Pulitzer Prizes over a 15 year period. He personally shared one of those Pulitzers with a reporter with the Chicago Daily News. Their joint investigation exposed the fact that at least 51 newspaper employees around Illinois were on the state’s payroll during the gubernatorial term of Dwight Green. Other Pulitzers were won for stories about the Centralia mine disaster, St. Louis election fraud and smoke pollution in the City of St. Louis.