Forbes, J.B.

J.B. Forbes retired in Nov. of 2020 during his 46th year at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He got his start at the University of Kansas where he majored in photo-journalism. He worked in Topeka and Parsons, Kansas, and  Miami, Florida, before moving to St. Louis in 1975.

During his career, he was a staff photographer, photo editor and Chief Photographer and Assignment editor. Forbes started traveling internationally for the Post-Dispatch in 1980. He traveled to more than thirty countries covering wars, natural disasters and political strife. Some of his most rewarding work occurred in Haiti where Forbes made seven trips covering revolution, embargo, medical missions, and the massive earthquake of 2010. Forbes volunteered to go to several war zones during his career including El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2014, he made his last  overseas trip to do a story on an orphanage in India started by a St. Louis doctor.

Forbes was runner-up College Photographer of the Year in 1972. He has been the National Press Photographer's Regional Photographer of the Year four times and runner-up five times. He was in the first class to win first place awards in both the Pro Football and Pro Baseball Hall of Fame Photo Contests. He has received over 100 awards during his career. Forbes took part in the team coverage of the Kirkwood City Hall shootings in 2008 that became a Pulitzer Prize finalist.  In 2011, he was selected to become a member of the Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame. In 2014, Forbes and the rest of the photo staff of the Post-Dispatch won the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of Ferguson and the Michael Brown shooting aftermath. Also that year, he placed second in the National Headliners portfolio category. In 2018, Forbes was inducted into the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame. Also, in 2018, he received the first ever Distinguished Alumni Award by KU’s William Allen White School of Journalism. 

Forbes and his wife moved to Cedar Hill, Missouri, in 2019. They have four children and thirteen grandchildren. In his spare time, he likes to photograph nature and his beautiful grandchildren. He keeps busy writing a book about his fifty-year career.