St. Louis has lost a one-of-a-kind voice. Ray Hartmann died Thursday, at age 73, in a tragic car accident. Ray was a fierce advocate for journalism and the First Amendment. He believed deeply in community, the power of the press, and human rights.
Born and raised on the “mean streets” of West County, as he would quip, he attended Parkway Central, where he was eventually inducted in the Hall of Fame—recognition that he was as proud to receive as countless media honors. In college at Mizzou, he served as editor-in-chief of The Maneater—twice, the only student to do so in the storied student-run paper’s history—and showed a certain tenacity for taking on the establishment. After graduation, he worked as a speech writer for Republican Christopher “Kit” Bond, a fact he’d often use to remind others of his ability to reach across the aisle.
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In 1977, Ray launched the Riverfront Times, which quickly made a name for questioning the status quo, fearlessly standing up for the oppressed. Over the years, it became a training ground for some of the city’s most accomplished journalists. As Jeannette Cooperman, who worked with Ray for years at the RFT and later St. Louis Magazine, reflected, “I was glad to work for somebody who, when one of our stories threatened to lose us big advertising clients, said, ‘Go for it.’”
Ray was passionate, genuine, unwavering in standing up for what he believed was right. This passion was apparent in the columns and stories published in the RFT, though he gained a different audience when he co-founded Donnybrook on Nine PBS in 1987. As the original provocateur, Martin Duggan, Ray’s longtime mentor, later recounted of that pilot, “It was a very fortunate news week. The Post-Dispatch was running a series about ‘The Schoemehl Money Machine,’ and a sensational murder had occurred. So here we are, totally unrehearsed, unscripted, uninformed, and these are my opening words: ‘Ray Hartmann! A young Crestwood woman was found bound and gagged and burned to death…and they met through a so-called eligible ad in your newspaper!’ For the first and only time, Ray threw up his hands.”
Ray eventually sold the RFT to Phoenix-based New Times in 1998. Around the same time, Ray and one of his original Donnybrook colleagues, Mark Vittert, founder of the St. Louis Business Journal, revived the defunct St. Louis Magazine. After debuting in spring 1995 with an up-and-coming singer named Sheryl Crow on the cover, the magazine went from quarterly to bimonthly to monthly in 1997. Eventually, Cooperman became editor before shifting to staff writer, covering murderers, lobbyists, priests, and much more. While SLM often highlighted the best of the city, it also pushed the city to be its best—a mission that remains core to this day.
Ray also worked to improve the community in other ways. He was president of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri and a passionate supporter of Paraquad and the Starkloff Disability Institute. His byline eventually appeared in SLM’s “Think Again” column. Again, he never backed down from heated debates, whether about Coldwater Creek, zoo funding, or the business of sports. While everyone else in St. Louis was seemingly in denial, Ray wrote numerous columns predicting the Rams would leave town. Somehow, it was as if he knew it even before Stan Kroenke. While working on a story—whether written or on the air—he would consider every angle, researching it through old-fashioned reporting and talking through it with colleagues.
After selling SLM in 2018, he returned to the RFT, this time as a freelance columnist. Then, in 2024, he retired from journalism, leaving his beloved seat on Donnybrook to enter the race for Congress against longtime incumbent U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner. As always, he balanced the transition with both gravity and levity.
“I really don’t see politics as any more the ‘dark side’ than journalism,” he told Don Corrigan. “I think journalists and politicians are all looked upon as bottom feeders. In fact, I used to think that telemarketers were in the worst profession. But after thinking about it, journalists, politicians and telemarketers are all kind of doing the same things at one time or another.”
Wagner won a seventh consecutive term in November 2024, after which Ray became a fundraising consultant for area nonprofits.
One through line was Ray’s passion and his willingness to give. An avid Blues fan, he’d pick up Game Time, a fan-produced zine, before home games and always stop to say hello when other St. Louisans recognized him. He served as inspiration to countless journalists. He’d go out of his way to support employees, providing extra time off during particularly hard times, attending colleagues’ baby showers and children’s birthday parties. He would proudly share about his own kids, Benjamin and Brielle, who are now college students. He would emphasize that parents should listen and can learn lessons from their children.
Last year, shortly before Mother’s Day, Ray wrote a heartfelt column about his own mother, Hanne Rose Bromet, who was rescued from Nazi Germany in 1934 at age 9 and immigrated to the United States. “What I remember most about my mom was kindness, which she showed—unconditionally—to me and to everyone with whom she came in contact, until she died.”
Although he sometimes expressed it in different ways—whether standing up for what he believed in public forums or making generous gestures with little fanfare—it was a value that remained close to Ray’s heart.
