Dick Wagner, a newspaper editor and sportswriter whose award-winning journalism career flourished in several markets, including two decades at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, died of cancer in St. Louis on Thursday, February 6, 2020. He was 77.

Wagner brought an artist’s eye to newspaper page design, where as Globe-Democrat Pictures Editor, then later as Editor of its Sports Special Page, he helped modernize the look and appeal of the paper, which was into its second century by the time Wagner arrived in the late 1960s. Photographers and writers alike loved to produce work for the pages Wagner designed because his editing made the writing better and he gave ample space to compelling, story-telling news and feature photography.

Wagner always had a love for writing, particularly about sports, an avocation he developed while growing up in southwest Ohio. Born in 1942 in Hamilton, Ohio to the late Walter Arthur Wagner and Lois Jane Maddock, Wagner attended schools there until the family moved to nearby Fairfield, Ohio in 1955. The young Wagner devoured publications such as The Sporting News and Sport, and seldom missed a broadcast of his favorite team, the Cincinnati Reds. When the Reds played the Dodgers and Giants in California beginning with the 1958 season, Wagner turned the clocks in his house to Pacific Time, so he could better appreciate the Reds’ broadcast experience.

After graduating from Fairfield High in 1960, Wagner earned a journalism degree from Michigan State University. He started his newspaper career in Medina, N.Y., then moved to St. Louis to work for the Globe-Democrat. Wagner’s quirky antics often lightened up the Globe newsroom, like the time he showed up to edit and lay out the medical page dressed in a doctor’s scrubs. Not everyone always appreciated his sense of humor, but few doubted his talent.

In the mid-1980s, when it appeared that the Globe-Democrat was about to cease operations, Wagner landed a job in the Long Beach bureau of the Los Angeles Times, primarily as a writer. In Long Beach, he covered Long Beach State University and other sports, and also wrote investigative and human interest stories. In the late ‘90s, Wagner moved to Key West, Florida, where he covered the local sports scene for the Key West Citizen. In 1998, he won first place in the “Investigative Stories” category for small circulation publications in the annual Florida Sportswriters Association contest.

Wagner is survived by his daughter Lindsey Wagner (Kevin) Elliott and granddaughter Avery; brother Gary (Pat) Wagner of Mesa, Arizona; nephew David (Terri) Wagner of Lake Worth, Florida; and niece Krista Edwards of Mesa, Arizona. For those wishing to honor Wagner’s memory with a gift, the family requests it be directed to Mercy South de Greeff Hospice House at 10024 Kennerly Rd., St. Louis, Mo., 63128 or the Siteman Cancer Center.