Correspondent photo / Sean Barron Those inducted into the Youngstown Press Club’s Hall of Fame at its annual Hall of Fame and Awards dinner at Stambaugh Auditorium on Wednesday are, from left, Len Rome, longtime WYTV Channel 33 news anchor; Nick Rich, videographer for WKBN-TV 27 and WYTV; Mona Alexander, retired news director for WFMJ-TV 21; and Bill Lewis, longtime photographer for The Vindicator. Inducted posthumously was William “Bill” Fleckenstein, co-founder and general manager for WHOT radio.

YOUNGSTOWN – Mona Alexander is among those who have ascended the stairway to a high level of success while finding herself at an elevated height.

“I stand on the shoulders of Tom Holden, who I worked with at Channel 27. He taught me how to craft stories to be relevant to viewers’ lives,” Alexander, retired news director for WFMJ-TV 21, said.

The late Holden, who was an iconic WKBN-TV 27 anchor, was among those who had a powerful influence on Alexander’s journalism career, which began with her reporting for that station on the devastating economic impact that the closing of many Mahoning Valley steel mills had on the region. She also reported heavily on city government, politics and public corruption.

Holden joined Channel 27 in 1972 as a reporter, then was named as anchor two years later. He died in 2005 at age 67.

For her work, Alexander was among five area journalists who were inducted into the Youngstown Press Club’s Hall of Fame at Wednesday evening’s fourth annual YPC Hall of Fame and Awards dinner at Stambaugh Auditorium.

In her remarks, Alexander also cited Bob Black, longtime WFMJ-TV 21 news anchor, Mike Gauntner, a Channel 21 producer; former Vindicator columnist Bertram deSouza, who now hosts The Scribbler podcast; Mark Brown, who approved her hiring at Channel 21; and Andrea Wood, the Youngstown Business Journal’s publisher, as key influences and sources of inspiration for her career.

“He taught me how to get good information that was not readily available,” Alexander said about Gauntner.

The other inductees were Bill Lewis, longtime Vindicator photographer; Nick Rich, videographer for Channels 27 and 33; and Len Rome, a decades-long reporter for Channel 33.

Inducted posthumously was William “Bill” Fleckenstein, who co-founded and served as general manager for WHOT radio before he died in February 2023. He was 98.

During his remarks, Lewis, a Kent State University graduate who began his photography career in 1978 at the Warren Tribune Chronicle, showed an enlarged collage of images he had taken over the years – each of which he said captured “a slice of life” in the Mahoning Valley – and included everything from the closure of the Valley’s steel mills to a homicide scene in Youngstown to two boys engaged in a playful water fight.

“It was gut-wrenching, even to a 25-year-old guy,” Lewis said as he showed gritty, black-and-white shots he had taken during the demise of the steel industry in the late 1970s, which included a poignant one of three forlorn steelworkers looking at their shuttered workplace before it was dynamited.

“I began in the era of news film when editing was done with a splicer and tape,” Rich said about the debut in 1975 of his 32-year videography career for Channel 33.

One of the major stories Rich captured was the events of Sept. 19, 1977, a day infamously known locally as “Black Monday,” when the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. announced the closure of its Campbell Works, which idled thousands of workers. At one point, the city’s unemployment rate soared to 25%, Rich recalled.

Other high-profile stories he covered included the 1984 Idora Park fire, former U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant’s two corruption trials and organized crime and corruption, he told an audience of a few hundred.

“I can still see the huge flames and the firefighters trying to put it out,” Rich said about the Idora Park fire.

Rome recalled his not-so-auspicious first day with Channel 33 in August 1982 – the day the FBI arrested Mahoning County Sheriff Phil Chance on federal racketeering and bribery charges.

Before coming to WYTV, Rome, who also worked at two Pittsburgh radio stations as well as one in Moundsville, W.Va., was the 11 p.m. anchor with WSEE-TV 35 in Erie, Pa. He now co-hosts a weekday morning program on Channel 33 with Jim Loboy, who nominated him for the award.

Rome, who Loboy facetiously referred to as “a showman,” said he is always aiming to improve at his craft.

“Your best show is the newscast that is coming up,” he added.

Honoring the late Fleckenstein was YPC member Chris Travers, who said that even though he was not widely known, Fleckenstein left an indelible mark on the Valley.

After having been hired at WFMJ-AM 1390, he met fellow engineer Myron Jones before the two of them launched WHOT in October 1955. Four years earlier, Jones and Fleckenstein left WFMJ and founded WJET-AM in Erie, Pa.

“A person like Bill Fleckenstein deserves to be remembered,” Travers said.

Additional honors went to Lisa Abraham, former Tribune Chronicle reporter who is a senior writer for KSU’s Division of University Communications in marketing, First Amendment Award; Madison Tromler, Channel 21 news anchor and reporter, Excellence in Media Award; and JoAnn Kolarik, WFMJ account executive, Medal of Merit.

The YPC’s 2024 scholarship recipients were Molly Burke, a Youngstown State University senior who has received numerous awards for her reporting with The Jambar, and Merrick Morneweck, a Penn State University student who is a writing intern for the PSU College of Arts and Architecture’s website. Morneweck also serves as editor for the university’s online magazine.

In their remarks, several awardees urged added support for journalists, many of whom they feel also are swimming against a current of ubiquitous and deliberate misinformation and untruths that fill many social media sites. It’s vital that they continue to fight against such challenges while holding to high standards of excellence, ethics and integrity, some of them stressed.

Along those lines, Abraham recalled having spent 22 days in jail in 1994 as a Tribune Chronicle reporter for refusing to testify before a Trumbull County grand jury that was conducting a corruption probe in the county engineer’s office. She refused while holding to her belief that journalists should not also have to serve as government investigators.