Bill McClellan – 2015
Bill McClellan began writing a regular column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1983, after originally being hired to write entertainment listings, followed by a promotion to covering the city police beat. Many of his columns over the ensuing years were based on the premise of championing the underdog—adding his humor and empathy to his unassuming manner.
McClellan began his education at the University of Illinois before he was drafted in 1969 and consequently served as a Marine combat correspondent for ten months in Vietnam and two months in Japan. After the Marines, McClellan attended Arizona State University where he picked up his first journalism class in the bar where he worked, from a journalism professor who was a regular customer. While at the Post, McClellan penned several books, one a true-crime book entitled Body of Evidence and four books in a collection of his columns.
He was also a regular panelist on the KETC program “Donnybrook.”