​Good News: William Paul Straeter, Jr. among four photojournalists to be inducted into Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame

The Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame in Columbia will induct four award-winning photojournalists on October 17th.

This will be the 20th group of inductees since the founding of the Hall of Fame in 2005. Inductees are the late William Paul Straeter, Jr.; Talis Bergmanis of Kansas City; David Eulitt of Kansas City; and John Trotter of New York. The late William Paul Straeter, Jr. is the father of Grain Valley resident Pamela Lindsay.

Photographs made by the inductees will be on display during the 4:00 p.m. ceremony and reception in the Sam B. Cook Hall at the Center for Missouri Studies, the State Historical Society of Missouri’s location in downtown Columbia. Those photographs will join the Hall of Fame’s collection of work by inductees.

The Photojournalism Hall of Fame was founded at the urging of Bill Miller Sr., publisher of the Washington Missourian newspaper, to recognize outstanding contributors to visual communication with ties to Missouri.

William Paul Straeter, Jr. started work as a bookkeeper in the 30s and shortly before World War II he began to believe he could make more money as a full-time freelance photographer, and “posting records bored the hell out of me,” he said.

During the war, Straeter took photos and taught photography for the Navy Seabees in the South Pacific and then he was a photographer for the Associated Press Kansas City bureau. After 30 years, he retired “to start leading a normal life.”

The plan was lots of golfing, fishing, watching sports, and especially sleeping through the night since he had been on call for 30 years as AP’s only photographer for the region. Straeter often received a call in the middle of the night to shoot a fire or cover a plane crash, and he often covered regions all the way into Oklahoma and Kansas. For bigger stories, he traveled even further, including when he covered the school integration conflict in Little Rock, Arkansas and a 1947 explosion in Texas. He also covered Big Eight sports (Big Six when he started) and the 1960 Winter Olympics.

When Straeter joined AP in 1945, he called photography his life, his vocation and hobby, his love, almost his religion. Straeter frequently said every time he was sent out it was his favorite time because he got to help make sure that anyone getting up early before work or coming home after a long day could reach for a newspaper and see what’s happening.

In December 1981, Straeter died after a long illness.

The Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame in Columbia will induct four award-winning photojournalists on October 17th.
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This will be the 20th group of inductees since the founding of the Hall of Fame in 2005. Inductees are the late William Paul Straeter, Jr.; Talis Bergmanis of Kansas City; David Eulitt of Kansas City; and John Trotter of New York. The late William Paul Straeter, Jr. is the father of Grain Valley resident Pamela Lindsay. Photo credit: MO Press Association