Selwyn Pepper – 2011
Longtime Post-Dispatch reporter, editor and rewrite man Selwyn Pepper is credited with helping the newspaper win three Pulitzer Prizes for Public Service. He also was one of the co-founders of the St. Louis Jewish Light in 1963. In his first year as a full-time reporter at the Post-Dispatch in 1936, Pepper contributed to a voter-fraud investigation that resulted in a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. He also helped the paper win Pulitzers for stories on corruption in the Internal Revenue Bureau and for coverage of a Centralia, Ill., coal mine disaster in that killed 111 in 1948. Pepper served as city editor, features editor, news editor and reader’s advocate. He was a mentor to several generations of journalists.