What a year it’s been for newsman Rex Rhoades.

In April, he retired after 19 years as executive editor of the Sun Journal. Next month, he’ll enter the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame, one of three Maine journalists this year to earn the distinction.

Rhoades spent a total of four decades in journalism with the second half of it spent at the Lewiston newspaper where he was hired as executive editor in 1997.

In 1999, Rhoades was named the Maine Press Association’s Journalist of the Year, honored for his leadership on the prize-winning “Bates & Beyond” project that analyzed the future of the Bates Mill at a time when voters were being asked to approve further development there. The award also recognized his leadership in redesigning the Sun Journal, his editorial- and column-writing, and his willingness to bring legal challenges over open-meeting law issues.

Since that time, Rhoades has led a number of award-winning newsroom projects, including investigations into Gov. Paul LePage’s interference with unemployment hearing officers at the Department of Labor.

During his time with the newspaper, the Sun Journal’s daily and Sunday newspapers have been awarded the Maine Press Association’s General Excellence award more than a dozen times. The paper has also won a number of Publick Occurrences Awards from the New England Newspaper Association for superior accomplishment in journalism.

In 2007, on behalf of the staff, he accepted a national award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for “Seeing Green,” a multi-part project analyzing and comparing Maine’s papermaking industry with the industry in Brazil.

Rhoades will be inducted into the MPA Hall of Fame on Oct. 29 at Doubletree Hotel in South Portland along with two other Maine journalists: Hugh Bowden, who retired in August after a career in Down East Maine newspapers that spanned more than 50 years; and Steve Solloway, one of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram’s best-known writers for his 25 years as a sports columnist.