John Keasler

John Irvin Keasler (August 3, 1921 – September 5, 1995) While at the Post-Dispatch, Keasler was one of the founders in 1956 of the Catfish Club, which eventually became the Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis.

During his 30-year career, Keasler covered both the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the 1969 Moon landing.

When the News folded, no one was more distraught than Keasler. "I feel half numb, like I've got a head full of cold Crisco," he said at the time. "The News was a living thing with a heart and a soul, and it's dying."

Keasler's satirical novel, Surrounded on Three Sides, first published in 1958, remains in print.

He died in Plant City, Florida, in 1995, at the age of 74.

A scholarship to the University of Miami for a student majoring in print journalism, the John and Marjorie Keasler Journalism Scholarship, is given in his memory.