Terry Ganey

Terry J. Ganey, 77, of St. Louis died of cancer on Dec. 26, 2025, at his home in St. Louis.

Ganey served in the U.S. Army Reserves. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and received a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri. His master’s thesis, “Saigon to Baghdad: Comparing Combat Correspondents’ Experiences in Vietnam and Iraq,” developed from his time embedded with a U.S. Army unit in Iraq in 2003.

He began his career as a news broadcaster at WIBV radio in Belleville and joined the Associated Press in St. Louis in 1972. He became the AP’s capital correspondent in Jefferson City in 1975 before joining the St. Louis Post-Dispatch two years later.

Ganey retired from the Post-Dispatch in 2005 and worked at the Columbia Daily Tribune. He taught news writing at the Missouri School of Journalism and was a contributor to the Gateway Journalism Review.

As an award-winning investigative journalist and chief of the Post-Dispatch’s news bureau in Jefferson City, he provided insightful and thorough coverage of state government, while sometimes being the bane of politicians, such as when a governor’s chief of staff climbed out his office window to avoid Ganey’s questions.

In addition to his newspaper work, Ganey was an author or co-author of nonfiction books, including true crime narrative St. Joseph’s Children: A True Story of Terror and Justice; Under the Influence: The Unauthorized Story of the Anheuser-Busch Dynasty, co-authored with fellow reporter Peter Hernon; and the collaborating writer with U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill on her political memoir, Plenty Ladylike.

In addition to his wife, Judy, he is survived by three children, David, Tim and Colleen; six grandchildren; and many more family and friends.