Newspaper Hall of Fame names inductees

Contingent includes representatives from Southeast Missouri.

Five people will be inducted to the Missouri Press Association Newspaper Hall of Fame Sept. 23, including a man from the Southeast Missouri area.

The inductees include: Charles Ellinghouse, former publisher of five Southeast Missouri newspapers; H. Denny Davis, retired publisher of the Fayette Advertiser and Democrat-Leader; Percy Pascoe, retired publisher of the Cuba Free Press, Steelville Star and Crawford Mirror; R.B. "Bob" Smith III, former publisher of the Branson Beacon and the Lebanon Daily Record; and Ed Watson, former publisher of the Columbia Daily Tribune. The ceremony will be held at Lake of the Ozarks.

Ellinghouse, who died in 1983, was publisher of the weekly Greenville Sun in Greenville, Mo., in the 1920s and also was the mayor of both Old and New Greenville.

In 1951, he bought the Wayne County Journal-Banner in Piedmont, Mo., and later was elected mayor of the town. Later he acquired the Reynolds County Courier in Ellington, Mo., the Bismark Gazette in Bismark, Mo., and the Current Local in Van Buren, Mo.

In 1952, Ellinghouse was the president of the Southeast Missouri Press Association.

Cletis Ellinghouse, Charles Ellinghouse's son, said his father was a community servant who also was active in nearly every organization in the towns in which he lived. He said he thinks his father is very deserving of the award.

"Naturally, he would be very pleased to have this honor," said Ellinghouse, who is also the former publisher of several area newspapers, including the Marble Hill Banner Press and the Puxico Press.

"He took things sort of in stride, but I think he would have appreciated it very deeply."

Three of Charles Ellinghouse's children and two of his grandchildren went into the newspaper business.

H. Denny Davis, another of the inductees, was a former wire editor for the Southeast Missourian.