Three new members will enter the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame on October 23. Dorothy “Dot” Roderick, Dieter Bradbury and Judy Meyer and have been selected by the MPA’s Hall of Fame Committee and will be inducted during the association’s annual Fall Conference.

Dot Roderick

Dot Roderick was one of the first women advertising executives in the newspaper industry.

Roderick worked 43 years for Gannett, starting in 1937 with the Central Maine Morning Sentinel and then transferring to Portland in 1940 to work for The Portland Press Herald, Evening Express and Sunday Telegram.

She became national ad manager in 1956, working with advertisers and advertising agencies throughout the United States and with the newspapers' national advertising representative, Landon Associates.

Roderick frequently spoke fondly about her days in a heavily male-dominated industry, jet-setting across the country to meet with execs and clients as well as entertaining the same, along with her husband Arthur, when clients came to Maine.

Dot retired in 1980 from Gannett’s Portland newspapers and died on March 1, 2020, at the age of 101.

Dieter Bradbury

Dieter Bradbury has been a force in Maine journalism for more than four decades.

Upon graduating from the University of Southern Maine in 1980, Bradbury was hired part-time for the Portland Press Herald’s afternoon paper, the Evening Express. Two years later, he became a full-time reporter for the Press Herald, covering the night cops beat and later was the environment reporter.

Bradbury then went to the assignment desk, later served a short time as the Press Herald’s business editor and then in 2012 he was promoted to deputy managing editor, overseeing the news desks, directing specialty beats and political reporting, and managing some of the paper’s most important work.

For the past 10 years, Bradbury has directed the State House, political and election coverage and he has shepherded some of the Herald’s top projects during his time as deputy managing editor. Among them: the 2012 series “Deadly Force,” which investigated police shootings; the 2014 series “The Challenge of Our Age,” which examined the issues facing our aging population; and the 2017 series “Lost,” which chronicled the tolls that the opioid epidemic was taking on our state and our people.

Bradbury retired from the Portland Press Herald in September.

Judy Meyer

Judy Meyer began working for the Sun Journal as a freelancer out of the Norway (Maine) bureau, where she covered local selectmen's meetings and breaking news in nearby towns.

In 1996, she was hired full-time to run that bureau, and from there she rose swiftly through the ranks of one of the largest daily newspapers in Maine. In 1998, she was made editorial page editor at the newspaper’s headquarters in Lewiston. Five years later, she was named daytime managing editor. In April 2016, she was named the Sun Journal’s executive editor, replacing Rex Rhoades upon his retirement.

Today, Meyer is responsible for overseeing the Sun Journal, the third-largest daily newspaper in Maine, as well as at a half-dozen weekly newspapers spread throughout Sun Media’s western Maine coverage area. She also serves as executive editor of the central Maine dailies: Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal.

A fierce advocate for first amendment rights, Meyer was instrumental in the formation of the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition (MFOIC), a group that's been the leading advocacy organization for improving open meeting and public record laws in Maine.

The MPA Hall of Fame, established in 1998, honors newspaper people with Maine connections who have made outstanding contributions to the profession. Its members are on the MPA website, at http://mainepressassociation.org/hall-of-fame/.

Tickets to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony are available by contacting MPA Executive Director Diane Norton at mainepressmail@gmail.com or 691-0131.