Henneberger, Melinda

Melinda is the metro columnist for The Kansas City Star. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2022, for "persuasive columns demanding justice for alleged victims of a retired Kansas City, Kansas, police detective accused of being a sexual predator." In September of 2022, former KCKPD detective Roger Golubski was arrested and has since been charged with conspiracy, kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse and civil rights violations. Melinda was also a Pulitzer finalist for commentary in 2021, for editorial writing in 2020 and for commentary in 2019. 

She received the Mike Royko Award for Commentary and Column Writing from the News Leaders Association in 2022 and 2019, as well a Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award in 2022 and the Scripps Howard Walker Stone Award for Opinion Writing in 2018.  

Melinda spent the last year as metro columnist at The Sacramento Bee before returning to The Star in April. In 2023, she won first place commentary awards from the Sacramento Press Club, the Best in the West competition among news outlets in 14 Western states, and the California News Publishers Association, all for her columns on homeless Californians.

Before joining The Star in 2017, Melinda was a reporter in Dallas, New York, Washington and Rome. She spent 10 years at The New York Times, as Rome Bureau Chief, a Washington correspondent and a Metro reporter covering New York City hospitals. 

An Illinois native and graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Henneberger earned a graduate degree in European Studies from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. She also has been a fellow at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and at The Catholic University of America's Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies.

She and her husband Bill Turque, an editor who began his journalism career at The Star, have grown twins, Della and Connor Turque.