Tribute to Ray Hartmann, Part 1

Andy Leonard, Ray's attorney, remembers his longtime friend

Ray Hartmann on Donnybrook

Earlier this week, in my piece paying tribute to Ray Hartmann, who died on April 23, I noted that Washington University’s The Common Reader will publish other remembrances of Ray that I’ve gathered from former staffers of The Riverfront Times. A sizable portion of that material—pieces from the RFT’s writers, editors, and art directors—should appear on The Common Reader site by the end of this month, and I’ll let Re/Views readers know when that occurs.

In the meantime, I’m posting remembrances that won’t appear in The Common Reader. The first, which includes the eulogy he delivered at Ray’s funeral, is by Ray’s longtime friend and attorney, Andy Leonard. Andy shares Ray’s biographical background, some of which will be unfamiliar and quite revealing to most readers. I’ll quickly follow that with a Part 2, which features remembrances from RFT employees who worked for Ray in capacities other than writing, editing, or art-directing.

A few additional RFTers wanted to participate, but circumstances prevented them from meeting the deadline I imposed. When those pieces arrive in my inbox, I’ll make one final Ray-related post.

For these remembrances, I have included The Riverfront Times and St. Louis Magazine (SLM) titles held by contributors and the years they worked at the publications.

Andy Leonard, RFT and SLM legal counsel and Ray Hartmann’s personal attorney, 1978-2026

I’ve been friends with Ray for 48 years. Many people know me as his lawyer, but that was a side benefit.

I was there in Mansion House in the early RFT days.

I was there on Park Avenue when Ray and Dick May sold the RFT back cover to Park Chop Suey for six months.

I was there when Ray sold, then backed out, then sold the RFT, and I went to the ATM with him so he could push the button for “Current Balance” and see eight figures.

I was there when Ray had tickets to Miami Heat games and bought a club box at one of the nightclubs.

I was on the train to Kimmswick for Ray’s marriage to Kerri.

I was there when Ray sold St. Louis Magazine and then got forced out of his office.

We played softball every Monday night in the summers and lots of golf. He was in my fantasy football and baseball leagues.

I have more than 200 open and closed files at my law office that cover Ray’s ups and downs, traffic tickets, Miami condo sales, libel and trademark research, hirings, firings, partners, breakups, side deals, a shopping center, two or three software businesses, and an array of miscellaneous legal or quasi-legal issues that needed a file.

Ray called me almost every day for 48 years.

To give you a sense of who Ray Hartmann was, I’d like to share a version of the eulogy I delivered at his funeral service on April 29. I spoke after the moving words of Ray’s children, Ben and Brielle:

They’re impressive, aren’t they? Ben’s 22 and will graduate from the Missouri University of Science and Technology in a couple of weeks with a degree in computer science. He’s already got a great job and will be here in St. Louis. Brielle’s 20 and is a sophomore at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and and will graduate a year early in May 2027. She’s now preparing to take the MCAT medical-school admissions test this summer. If you were on Ray’s speed dial, you know all this already—Ray loved to brag about Ben and Brielle.

I want to commend Kerri. Many of you in the audience might have been at Ray and Kerri’s wedding in 2003. Recall that he rented a train and took us to Kimmswick. Why not? It was Ray and Kerri’s wedding, and it was a spectacle, and it was nice.

Kerri has had a lot to do and a lot of decisions to make in the past few days, and she’s been thoughtful and flexible about how to honor Ray and protect the family. She’s a top salesman at Nordstrom nowadays. Ray bragged about her, too.

I want to acknowledge Ray’s cousins and their families. Ray’s cousins on his mother’s side were the children of his mom’s brother Alfred Bromet. Ray’s mom has another brother in Mexico, Werner. I’ll talk a little bit more about Ray’s mom and her brothers in a minute.

Ray’s cousins on his dad’s side are the children of Ralph Hartmann. Ray’s Uncle Ralph stepped up to become his guardian when Ray’s parents died young. (That’s a power-packed sentence, isn’t it?) Suffice to say that Ray cherished his uncles and loved his cousins.

There are a couple of young people in the audience who are considered family. Ray’s dad and Parma Kidd worked together. Parma and her husband, Jerry, were close friends with Ray’s dad and mom. Ray and the Kidds’ daughter, Chris, grew up like brother and sister. When Chris died early in life of cancer, Ray stepped up and took his role as the godfather of Chris’ two children seriously. He spent time in Tampa, Florida, helping solve family problems and supporting the kids emotionally and financially. They refer to him as Uncle Ray.

I want to talk a little about Ray’s mom. Ray and Ray’s cousin Emily researched Hanna Rose Bromet and her family back to Nazi Germany in 1936. As part of the European Children’s Aid organization, Hanna was relocated from a small German town near the border of Poland to a foster family in University City. She was 9 years old. Separately, her brother Alfred was relocated to a foster home a few blocks away in U. City. Their older brother, Werner, was initially sent to a labor camp. He escaped and made his way to England, then Argentina, then Bolivia, and then Mexico City, where he lived his adult life and raised his family. Hanna’s younger sister, Lisolette, and her parents were sent to Auschwitz, where they died.

Ray’s dad, Charles Hartmann, married Hanna in 1950. They built a family life in University City and Creve Coeur that included Albert Bromet’s family and Ralph Hartmann’s family. They had dinners with Ray’s grandmother Johanna Hartmann.

Notably, Ray’s dad was an Eagle Scout and a regional leader of the Scouts. Ray’s uncle and grandfather were Eagle Scouts. Ray is an Eagle Scout. When you think about it, a lot of Ray’s view of life was based on integrity, honor, and the best of the Boy Scout message from back in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ray graduated from Parkway Central High School in 1970. He claims that he was the last player cut from the varsity basketball team, and his take on it was that the coaches kept him as long as they did because he was persistent and annoying to the foot-taller stars and everyone liked him. I see a metaphor there, but he viewed it as his moment of athletic glory in high school. Years later, Ray was inducted into the Parkway Hall of Fame, and he claims it was because of his basketball prowess.

At Mizzou, as a sophomore in 1971, Ray was elected editor of the official student campus newspaper, the maneater. It was somewhat of a coup. He had started a rival newspaper earlier in the year because of dissatisfaction with the maneater in previous years. According to the Columbia Tribune article that covered the election, Ray’s opponents, who included faculty and administration members of the committee that elected the editor, alleged that the election had been steamrolled by a voting bloc of students appointed by Chip Casteel, the student-body president. Also according to the Tribune, “Immediately after the election, the maneater staff threatened to resign en masse.” They didn’t. And Ray got elected again the next year to another term. Yesterday, I talked with the current editor of the maneater, who is writing a tribute to Ray. He told me, “Ray is a legend at the maneater, and no one else has ever been re-elected.“

During the summer in between his two terms, Ray interned at the St. Louis Globe- Democrat for city editor Martin Duggan. Also during those years, both of Ray’s parents died: first, his mom of a heart attack, and then, three years later, his dad of hepatitis.

After graduating from Mizzou’s School of Journalism, Ray got on a bus and traveled east, knocking on doors of newspapers, trying to get a job. He landed in Albany, New York, as a general-assignment reporter for the Albany Knickerbocker News. It was cold, and he had bosses, so after a year, when Missouri Gov. Kit Bond called to hire him as his speechwriter, Ray left Albany and came to Jeff City. That actually worked—Kit was young and moderate, and Ray was early in development as a liberal. However, Kit unexpectedly lost the 1976 election, so by January 1977, Ray was at loose ends.

Think through Ray’s career arc if Kit had won. But he didn’t, so Ray came to St. Louis and, using the last of his dad’s life-insurance money, started a newspaper named Profile St. Louis. It was based in Clayton and sold for 25 cents an issue. It didn’t quite work, but it got the attention of Mark Vittert. Armed with an infusion of cash and encouragement from Mark, Ray moved downtown to space in Mansion House, called the new paper The Riverfront Times, and changed the focus to downtown St. Louis and city nightlife, and it worked.

The RFT had up-and-down periods but steadily grew and attracted talented writers and businesspeople: Cliff Froehlich, Susan Hegger, Mary Huss, Dick May, Jeannette Batz Cooperman, Safir Ahmed, Nanci O’Dea, Chris Casagrande, Wm. Stage, Mike Lipel, D.J. Wilson, Jake McCarthy, Howard Balzer, Carol Struebig, Jim Whitely, and hundreds more.

It was the Wild West then for alternative newspapers, and Ray was the leader. It was energizing, edgy, and a ton of fun. All of a sudden, there were 64-, then 128-page issues, full of ads, investigative reporting, food and movie and play and fashion reviews—and, of course, the personal ads. Ray was ahead of the curve, ahead of the market, on all sorts of levels. He wrote editorials on an array of important issues. He was elected president of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. He was named Media Person of the Year. He played tambourine for the St. Louis Media Dorks band.

That wasn’t all. In 1987, Ray was one of the originating panelists on a public-affairs program for Nine Network: Donnybrook. By word of mouth and the consistent insistence by Ray and the other panelists that local issues were important, Donnybrook became the highest-rated locally produced PBS show nationwide. They developed personalities and track records that resonated. Ray argued and laughed, and he loved the other panelists and the producer. He built his schedule around taping the show every Thursday for 37 years.

The bookend to Ray’s publishing career was St Louis Magazine. Ray and Mark acquired the name and logo after the magazine’s first life, and SLM was relaunched in 1995. Ray was going to sell the magazine as part of the RFT package, but then thought, “Why not keep it?” And that’s exactly what happened, with Ray bringing SLM back as an iconic St. Louis showpiece. He assembled a first-class crew, with Leslie Tunney to publish and Jarrett Medlin to edit. Unbelievable graphics. Top sales people. Beautiful office. He wrote editorials that people turned to and quoted. Every issue was a piece of art. It worked at first, and he felt that he had created another valuable asset that justified pouring in capital. But the margins were razor-thin. And then it didn’t work. SLM had always relied on monster issues such as “Top Doctors in St. Louis” to cover gaps, but the internet exploded and print-media revenue was the counterbalance. It was a journalism case study. A business-school case study. And a law-school case study. It is important to note that, to the end, Ray kept the employees, kept the quality, kept the art. He sold SLM to a local buyer who liked Ray and wanted to preserve the magazine for the city. It was a bittersweet but OK exit.

Some friends were probably concerned about Ray. But he did fine. He wrote editorials again for the RFT; he was highly regarded as a writer for news agencies; he still had Donnybrook; and he started a nightly radio show on KTRS.

And then he ran for Congress. Those years were a frenetic scramble. Who has the guts to run against a six-term incumbent in a gerrymandered district? He did. And his message was character and communication. As you know, he can talk, and he talked to rooms of people where he didn’t sway one vote. He talked to rooms where they cheered wildly. He tromped around farms and walked in parades. He had a TV ad that mimicked Jon Stewart that we thought was hilarious, but it probably didn’t get many votes from the people who don’t watch Jon Stewart. He loved his campaign crew.

There are people in attendance from the ACLU who recall Ray’s terms as a board member and president of the St. Louis chapter. We called those his Crusade Years. Boy, he respected those folks. There are also people from the Starkloff Disability Institute, where Ray has been a gold-star board member since 2004, and Paraquad, where Ray served as a board member for years. You may have seen him speaking at countless benefits, schools, and assisted-care centers.

Finally, not only was Ray the best 5-foot-6 basketball player I ever knew, he was also a decent golfer and a workout warrior. He ran 10 or 12 full marathons. On Monday nights, for 40 years, he was the pitcher and emotional leader on the Kirkwood Baggies softball team. He cared about the Monday-night softball games and was a friend to every one of those guys.

The interesting part about the last few days is that I’ve traded these stories and more with a lot of you. And any one of you could top me with another story. Talking about Ray is an interactive process. It’s hard not to smile or jump in. Now, it is hard not to choke up. Here are some of the words people have used in phone calls, texts, or letters: integrity, brilliant, thoughtful, proud, mischievous, vital, supportive, kind. I’d add caring.

He was a wonderful friend. Goodbye, Ray.