St. Louis Beacon - Last blast for Duggan and Donnybrook combined

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Last blast for Duggan and Donnybrook combined

By Kristen Hare, Beacon staff

Posted 8:07 am Wed., 12.16.09

Part 1: "I was always interested in newspapers," Duggan says. "Not just the news, but newspapers themselves."

His junior year in high school, Duggan went to Cleveland, Ohio, for a class trip and he brought back newspapers from all the places he'd passed through. By his senior year in high school, Duggan was editor of his school paper. He was also on the debate team, which that year won the state championship finals in Springfield.

Part 2: After 45 years at the Globe-Democrat, Martin Duggan set off to begin something new. He was inspired after watching an episode of "The McLaughlin Group," feeling confident he could pull off a local version of that issues roundtable. And "Donnybrook" was born.

Part 3: "Martin is the show," says Bill McClellan, a columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and a member of the cast since the first show. "He's almost like an Old Testament figure, Moses, or even God. That's Martin. He runs the show, he is the final authority, and that's true both on the screen and off the screen. Martin makes all the decisions."

And now, after 23 years at the head of the table, Duggan's decided to leave.

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Editors' Picks

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- Federal appeals court panel strikes down California's ban on same-sex marriage: The 2-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court clears the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule as early as next year. LA Times
Region
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- Missouri teen gets life in prison, with possibility of parole, for killing her young neighbor: Alyssa Bustamante was 15 years old in 2009 when she killed 9-yaer-old Elizabeth Olten because she wanted to know how it would feel. | AP/Columbia Daily Tribune
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World
- After more shelling in Syria, Assad accused of genocide: Dozens are said to have died in sustained attack on city of Homs. | Telegraph
- Last known living World War I veteran dies at age 110: Florence Green was serving with the Women's Royal Air Force as a waitress at an air base in eastern England when the guns fell silent on Nov. 11, 1918. | AP
- After weeks of protest, first democratically elected president of Maldives resigns: Mohamed Nasheed told a televised news conference, "I don't want to run the country with an iron fist." | LA Times
- Greek leaders seek agreement on cutbacks to avert bankruptcy: A general strike disrupted public services and thousands of protesters took to the streets of Athens. | AP
Econ.
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Edu.
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- Entire staff of LA elementary school is replaced during abuse investigation: Two teachers have been accused of lewd acts against students. | LA Times
- Nixon says Missouri universities should not make up lost state funding with big tuition hikes: He said they should try to keep increases at no more than annual cost of living. | AP/Springfield News-Leader
- Students in St. Joseph want to make jumping jacks the official state exercise of Missouri: They pressed a state representative to introduce the bill, saying it honors a Missouri war hero, John J. Pershing, reportedly, the inventor of the jumping jack. KBIA/KWMU

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