Former Highline Times freelance photographer Jerry Gay is forever linked with Burien by one photographic image snapped 39 years ago.
It’s a photo of four exhausted volunteer firefighters resting after battling an early morning blaze at Burien’s Three Tree Point.
It won Gay the Pulitzer Prize for news photography in 1975.
He’s told the story a million times.
“I was on the early morning shift at The Seattle Times,” Gay told me. “Jim Heckman, the picture editor, said not much was going on but there had been a house fire in Burien overnight. If something else more important came up, he’d call me on the radio.”
The call didn’t come. At the scene, Gay spotted the four firefighters with their helmets removed. He took the “tired warrior” shot.
He then realized the four guys were volunteers who had been up all night battling the blaze. They were now contemplating having to go home, shower, and go on to their regular day jobs.
This was the Vietnam War era. The shot resembled a war scene so his editors dubbed the shot, “Lull in the Battle.”
At contest-submitting time, Gay was reviewing photos in the dark room when around 2 a.m. he looked at the Burien photo and heard a voice tell him, “This would be a good Pulitzer.” No one else was around.
His photo editor signed off on his various contest entries without realizing one of them was going off to the Pulitzer committee.
The Seattle Times has won several Pulitzers lately. But back then the Times had not won a Pulitzer since the 1950s. Gay’s was the second one ever for the Times. It was a big deal, especially for a guy in his late 20s.
“It opened doors,” Gay admitted. “I became well known.”
The Pulitzer wasn’t the only memorable moment in Gay’s Times career.
As he was driving to a photographer’s convention in Colorado, the Times asked him to stop by a local prison. Colorado authorities had detained a Washington native named Ted Bundy. Times editors were wondering if Bundy might be some how connected to the mysterious ‘Ted” who kept cropping up as detectives investigated a series of murders of young women in the Northwest.
Gay was locked in Bundy’s cell for three hours. They chatted and Bundy studied legal papers involved with his case as Gay photographed him.
FBI agents visited Gay about three weeks later. They told him not to leave town without notifying them.
Bundy had escaped his Colorado cell. Authorities didn’t know how. What they did know was that some guy had taken a camera case into Bundy’s cell and had been alone with him for three hours.
Bundy was caught in Florida where he was eventually executed. Gay could travel freely again.
To Gay, Ted was not the most intriguing member of the Bundy family. Gay took some rather nice photos of Bundy down to his parents’ home in Tacoma. He introduced himself to Bundy’s stepfather—the only father figure Bundy had known—and they talked at the kitchen table.
Gay recalls that all of a sudden the front door flew open and Bundy’s mother started spewing obscenities at him. Gay tried to explain that her husband had invited him in. Gay turned and glimpsed Bundy’s stepfather fleeing down the hall.
“That little voice came to me again, explaining why Ted might have had a problem relating to women,” Gay said. “I‘m not judging--just analyzing.”
The Pulitzer was not Gay’s one-hit wonder.
The National Press Photographers Association named Gay regional Photographer of the Year four years in a row in the mid-’70s. He served a one-year term as the association’s national president.
Gay hired on at major newspapers across the country including the Los Angeles Times, New York’s Newsday, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Maui News. I don’t know if the Maui News is ranked in the major leagues but it’s a great gig.
More recently, Gay took to the back roads of the nation on three consecutive summer cross-country trips “searching for the heart of America.” He drove almost 50,000 miles through the top, middle and bottom tiers of the continental United States taking photos of ordinary people he encountered.
From that came a photo book called “Seeing Reality: Humanity, Humility and Humor.” Author Robert Fulghum of “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” fame got involved in the project by writing the introduction and convincing Gay to remove most of the captions. Without captions, readers are free to interpret the photos in their own way.
Gay also produced another small photo book featuring the kids of Roslyn called “Our Road to Peace.”
“As kids we played with everyone,” Gay explained. “Then we were taught to just play with just certain friends and that we are all on different teams. I wanted to go back to what it was to be a kid.”
Back in the Pulitzer days, I certainly knew about Jerry Gay, but he dropped off my radar after he left the Seattle Times.
But, then last summer, I asked our managing editor, Ken Robinson if he could judge a Des Moines Library photo contest for teens.
“Jerry Gay will do it,” Ken replied.
“Yeah, right and Pete Carroll is coming down to coach the Mt. Rainier High Rams,” I answered.
But Gay not only graciously judged the teen contest but also started freelancing for the Highline Times photographing the faces of the community.
I got to assign him photo shoots. Even more fun, I tagged along on his shoots. Most importantly to me, I got to become his friend.
Now, Jerry is leaving the Highline Times and moving on to yet another new stage in his eventful life.
Jerry is not that interested in this Greatest Hits version of his life. Now he’s focused on sharing with audiences what he learned during his remarkable journey.
Jerry explains, “Our paradigm shift has now evolved to teach each of us by realization that we are one thought in the mind of God. In order to personally participate in our divine education I focus my pictures and words to reflect and reveal reality.”
You can find all things Jerry Gay at www.jerrygay.com. That includes the Pulitzer picture, Ted Bundy photos and other photos from his 50-year career, plus information on obtaining his two books and scheduling a personal appearance.
