Cleora Hughes – 2017
Cleora Hughes, one of the founding members of the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists, joined the Post-Dispatch in 1964 as a statistical clerk, having studied business at Harris Teachers’ College. She later transferred to the paper’s reference library, but she had her sights set on a writing career with the paper. She went back to school at Saint Louis University and got her degree in mass communications. Subsequent work at the paper was in the features department with a smattering of suburban news assignments. In 1995 she shifted her focus to food writing, and her byline became a weekly fixture in the paper’s food section. She was a member of the team that received the James Beard Award for excellence in food journalism in 2003.