Jon K. Rust

Notable work and positions

Rust Communications - President
Southeast Missourian - Publisher

Biography

Jon K. Rust is publisher of the Southeast Missourian in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, a position he has held since 2004, and president of Rust Communications, the family media company founded by his father, Gary Rust, which now includes more than 20 newspapers and dozens of websites across seven states, along with magazines and minority ownership of 17 radio stations. He served as co-president of Rust Communications alongside his brother Rex Rust from 2001 until Rex's death from cancer in January 2022, after which Jon continued as president. As a child he worked at his father's weekly newspaper in Cape Girardeau, and he edited his high school newspaper and later The Daily Tar Heel at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar. After graduating from UNC, he lived and worked in Russia and Ukraine during the fall of the Soviet Union. He returned to the U.S. and joined the Southeast Missourian as editorial page editor and later as a capital correspondent in Washington, D.C. He earned an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School, where he also wrote cases and textbook chapters on internet media companies and served as president of the Leadership and Ethics Forum. Rust joined the Local Media Association board in 2002 and later became its chairman, serving 16 years on the board, the longest tenure in the organization's history; the LMA created the Jon K. Rust LMA Service Award in his honor in 2018, with Rust as its first recipient. In 2022, he was inducted into the Missouri Press Association Newspaper Hall of Fame.

Career highlights

• President, Rust Communications Family media company spanning more than 20 newspapers across seven states.
• Publisher, Southeast Missourian Since 2004.
• Missouri Press Association Newspaper Hall of Fame 2022 inductee.