Longtime Kansas City Star journalist inducted into Missouri Newspaper Hall of Fame
The Missouri Press Association announced that a longtime Kansas City Star reporter, editor and columnist will be among this year’s inductees into the Newspaper Hall of Fame.
Mará Rose Williams is joining a class of inductees who are recognized for their distinguished careers in journalism.
Honored alongside Williams are Linda Geist, founding owner of The Lake Gazette in Monroe City; Mark Maassen, former advertising director for The Kansas City Star and former executive director of the Missouri Press Association; Jean Maneke, First Amendment lawyer; and Ken Newton, a longtime reporter, editor and columnist at several Missouri newspapers.
“This really is a tremendous honor,” Williams said. “None of us journalists do this work for the awards it sometimes brings. We do it to serve the communities to force change for the better, to bring voice to those who have been silenced and hold our leaders accountable. But this is more than an award to me. It’s a forever acknowledgement of the work. It’s like Missouri is saying to me well done and thank you.”
Mará’s career in journalism
Williams has been a journalist for more than 40 years, with 30 of those years reporting in and around Missouri and Kansas. She began working for The Star in 1998 as an education reporter. In 2005, she was honored at the Missouri Board of Education conference as a journalist who provided outstanding support for education.
She later began reporting on higher education, covering colleges and universities across the Kansas City region.
Some of the investigative work Williams was involved with included a story about the death of an international student shot and killed while working at a Kansas City restaurant, and a story about a University of Missouri professor who used his doctorial students in what the students referred to as “slave labor.”
In 2008, she received the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowship and traveled to Kenya to teach journalistic writing in the aftermath of a tribal massacre and raids on newspapers.
Williams’ reporting brought to light racial tensions that led to the 2015 protests at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Her awards include a Gerald Loeb Award and McClatchy President’s Award for an investigation that questioned how the University of Missouri-Kansas City was able to gain high rankings for its Bloch School of Management.
She was the driving force behind The Star’s “Truth in Black and White” project – an apology for decades of failing to adequately, fairly and honestly cover Black Kansas Citians.
Williams received the 2021 Eleanor McClatchy Award for her work on the project, communicating about changing the way Black Kansas Citians and other underrepresented groups are covered.
As The Star’s assistant managing editor for race and equity, Williams produced the newspaper, radio and community engagement collaborative project “Voices of Kansas City,” which highlighted the city’s Black business owners, educators and activists.
She is currently the newspaper’s senior opinion columnist.
“Mará cares deeply about journalism and maintaining its integrity,” said Andale Gross, The Star’s executive editor. “In every role throughout her career, she has set high standards for herself and those around her. Her passion for being true to the community and making sure news coverage is authentic and diverse is especially admirable.”
Before joining The Star, Williams had been an education writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and had reported for newspapers in West Virginia, Connecticut and n her hometown of Long Island, New York, where she worked for Newsday. Over the years her reporting spanned courts, crime, social service issues and education.
Williams will be honored among four other 2026 inductees Sept. 25 during Missouri Press Association’s (MPA) 160th Annual Convention and Trade Show in Columbia.
This story was originally published June 23, 2026 at 3:11 PM.
