Mason, Robert Henry, 1912-

Robert Henry Mason worked as a writer and in other capacities for the "Virginian-Pilot" in Norfolk, Va., 1945-1952 and 1957-1978, and was editor of that paper, 1962-1978.

Robert Henry Mason was born on 1 September 1912 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and grew up in Mebane. He received an A.B. degree from the University of North Carolina in 1933. He married Frances Fulton of Walnut Cove, North Carolina, in 1939. The Masons have one daughter, Frances (Mrs. Robert F. Baldwin, Jr.).

Robert Mason was editor of the Virginian Pilot from January 1962 until his retirement in October 1978. He had been the newspaper's managing editor, Sunday editor, city editor, and a staff writer. Before joining the Pilot in 1941, he worked for The Sanford Herald, The Raleigh Times, and the Durham Morning Herald, all in North Carolina. He left the Pilot during World Was II when he served as a Naval Reserve lieutenant in the Pacific Amphibious Force, and again for five years (1952-1957) while editing the Sanford paper, of which he then was part owner.

For seventeen years beginning in 1960, Mason was a member of the board of trustees of the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences and its successor, the Chrysler Museum of Norfolk. As chairman of the Norfolk Civil War Centennial Committee, he cooperated with the Atlantic Amphibious Force training command in staging a scale-model reenactment of the Merrimack ( C.S.S Virginia ) - Monitor battle on its hundredth anniversary. He has written and spoken extensively on Civil War naval topics, the Confederate cruisers especially.

Mason received a National Book Award for literary criticism in 1951 and twice was a Pulitzer juror. He was a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors for twenty years. In 1987, he was inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame. He is the author of One of the Neighbors' Children, published by Algonquin Books in 1987.

In 1980, Mason and his wife moved to Southern Pines, North Carolina. He is active in Weymouth, a regional cultural center. He continues to write, publishing articles in such journals as the William and Mary Law Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and the Naval Institute Proceedings