Hall of Famer   

A former editor of the weekly Montgomery County Sentinel is elected to the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association's Newspaper Hall of Fame.

Roger B. Farquhar, 84, a former editor of Maryland's weekly Montgomery County Sentinel, is elected to the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association's Newspaper Hall of Fame and accepts the nod humbly. "At first, I was overjoyed," he says. "And then...I became somewhat overwhelmed." There are "so many bright young people [at newspapers] who are doing outstanding things," he says. "I couldn't have the ability or the knowledge or whatever to do what so many of them are doing today." But part of the reason he earned the honor was Farquhar's ability to raise bright young journalists himself. As editor of the Sentinel from 1955 to 1973, minus a two-year stint at the Northern Virginia Sun, Farquhar oversaw the early careers of the New York Times' Robert Pear, the Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Tom Shales, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Andrew Schneider, and Knight Kiplinger of Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine. Schneider, the Sentinel's chief photographer in the late '60s/early '70s, went on to win two Pulitzer Prizes, in 1986 and 1987. Farquhar "was a hell of a teacher," he says. "A lot of the things I do today, I learned from him.... He's one of the best." Farquhar's 41-year career in newspapers includes his start as a circulation manager and then reporter at the Washington Daily News, a combat correspondent post in World War II and a decade as a reporter and editor at the Washington Post. "I feel emotional about the wonderful democracy we have in the U.S.," Farquhar says. "Being a participant in the newspaper business is a very satisfying and rewarding thing."