Five to be inducted into Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame

Five journalists who have had a lasting impact in Nevada will be inducted into the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame later this month, the Nevada Press Association and Nevada Press Foundation announced today. Lucius Beebe, Ray Hagar, Frank X. Mullen, Lenita Powers and Barry Smith will be honored at a lunch ceremony to be held at the organizations’ Annual Convention and Awards Banquet in Reno on Saturday, Sept. 18.

 

The five journalists were approved for induction earlier this month by the Nevada Press Association Board of Directors. Four of the five spent most of their careers in Northern Nevada; it has been the Board’s practice for the last several years to install Hall of Fame members from the region in which that year’s annual convention will be held. 

The late Lucius Beebe is the outlier. He lived in Nevada for only ten years, but during that relatively brief stay he helped to restore Virginia City and resuscitate the historically significant Territorial Enterprise. The noted gourmand, cultural critic and famed chronicler of “cafe society” moved from New York to Virginia City in 1950 and within two years restarted the newspaper that had employed Mark Twain nearly a century earlier. (More on Beebe.)

 

Ray Hagar spent most of his career covering sports and politics for the paper now known as the Reno Gazette Journal. He began covering public affairs and politics in 2003 as co-host with Sam Shad on Nevada Newsmakers, beginning a new chapter in his career that continues to this day. Since retiring from the Gazette Journal in 2016, Hagar has continued to write political news features for the paper and to co-host Nevada Newsmakers. (More on Hagar.)

 

Frank X. Mullen came to Nevada in 1988 to work for the Reno Gazette Journal, where he broke stories about dangerous Nevada doctors, malfeasance in state agencies, the abuse of research animals, the Fallon cancer cluster and toxic clouds generated by burning military munitions in California. He also taught journalism at the Reynolds School of Journalism for more than a dozen years and came out of retirement last year to revive the website of the Reno News & Review. (More on Mullen.)

 

Lenita Powers began her 43-year career with the Reno Gazette Journal at what was then called the “Women’s Page”, but later became a hard-news reporter covering federal and state courts, the legislature, K-12 and higher education. She also wrote heart-tugging people features, worked as an assistant city editor, mentored numerous Reynolds School journalism students, and wrote a popular column throughout the 1990s, tackling everything from politics to her own family. (More on Powers.)

 

Barry Smith made his mark in Nevada journalism as both an editor and an advocate. He came here in 1996 to become editor of the Nevada Appeal, where he wrote a weekly column and helped increase the paper’s circulation and improve its statehouse coverage. After being named executive director of the Nevada Press Association in 2006, he helped to improve the state’s open meeting and public records laws, including playing a role in passing the state’s first police body-cam statute. (More on Smith)

 

The Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame is based in the Nevada Press Foundation’s headquarters building in downtown Carson City. The building is presently listed for sale so the Hall of Fame may soon be seeking a new home.