Journalism Archives

October 22, 2025

Football and Fine Arts

I’ve been on an orgy of scanning lately. I digitized all of the 1967-68-69 and 70 Ohio University football games, and printed more than 600 pictures for a reunion of my old paper, The Palm Beach Post.

I created a subset of the football pix that showed the OU Marching 110, considered one of the best college bands in the county, because I have two grandsons in marching bands. The older of the two was recruited out of his middle school by the local high school. Both boys were recognized as section leaders.

I guess I should explain this photo

Anyway, I need to explain why my eye kept coming back to this photo so that I don’t come across as a dirty old man who has a picture taken as a dirty young man.

When my high school buddy Jim Stone convinced me to transfer to Ohio University in Athens my junior year, I have to admit I didn’t realize that it was a fine arts school, not a journalism school. I felt as welcome as a beer can at a Baptist picnic. Some of my classmates called me a prostitute because I took pictures for money, not “art.”

So, let me give a fine art spin on my cheerleader picture. That’s a bit of a departure for me because I always contended that my photos stand by themselves with maybe a little who, what, where, when, why and how help.

I wanted a machine that would freeze time

I’ve written before how most kids wanted to build time machines that would let them jump behind or ahead of the present day. I wanted a machine that would freeze time, and that’s why I became a photographer.

This young cheerleader is frozen in mid-cartwheel. Her hand is reaching out to land, her legs haven’t begun their transition over the top, and she’ll be in that pose forever. The other thing that strikes me is the complete disinterest the folks in the crowd showing. She’s giving her all, but nobody cares.

I captured a young woman in the prime of her life who is probably a grandmother today.

The band was a family

Curator Jessica and her sister, Elizabeth, were both in the Marching 110. Jessica would describe how close her bandmates were then and now. I’ve seen pictures of her marching with alums down Court Street. As a mature woman, she admits being a little sore the day after, but she’s still glad to lug her trombone down the bricks and gyrate with the youngsters.

I was never a jock or a frat boy, but I had the same sense of belonging as a member of The Ohio University Post newspaper. We lived an breathed the news biz and put out a darned good paper every day.

2013 OU football

At Jessica’s urging, I returned to Athens in 2013 to cover a game honoring the 1968 MAC winners. Since I didn’t have to come up with action pix for the next day’s paper, I took an unconventional approach.

Trimble took football seriously

I was roaming around SE Ohio in 2014 when a guy at the Glouster fire department said there was going to be a big playoff game that night, but they were afraid the home field was going to be too wet to play. They brought in a helicopter to hover over the grass to dry it out.

I had a wonderful time photographing the fans who took an intense personal interest in the game.

Sikeston Bulldogs bite the Tigers big time

When I heard that the Cape Central High Tigers were going to clash with the Sikeston Bulldogs in 2010, I thought it would be fun to relive my old high school football games with a modern digital camera that would let me shoot color where I had struggled to shoot black and white. Both teams were undefeated going in, but the Bulldogs ran all over Central 21-0. Fan spirit can go only so far.

Enough words. Here’s a gallery

Here’s a gallery of Ohio band photos. Click on any picture, to make it larger, then use the arrow keys to step through the collection.

May 4, 2024

May 4 déjà vu

Several years ago, John J. Lopinot, my old friend and chief photographer, thought that after half a century we were pretty much done with the topic of May 4.

He’ll probably continue to send me “NEVER FORGET” notes, though, until we lose either the transmitter or the receiver (or both).

What caused me to take another bite of an aging apple?

Why the change?

I was listening to an old playlist the other afternoon when John Fogarty came on singing this snippet:

Did you hear ’em talkin’ ’bout it on the radio
Did you try to read the writing on the wall
Did that voice inside you say I’ve heard it all before
It’s like Deja Vu all over again

Day by day I hear the voices rising
Started with a whisper like it did before
Day by day we count the dead and dying
Ship the bodies home while the networks all keep score

I’m hearing some of the same red-hot rhetoric that we heard in the 60s.

We’re getting older

[Note: this was taken when I was having breakfast in Scott Quad in 1967. The annotation was done by an irreverent Curator (now Director) Jessica of the SE Ohio History Center ]

A Facebook friend posted some memories noting that we were coming up on the 54th anniversary of the Kent State killings. I’m thinking about what could be a major project for Year 55.

The sad fact is that a lot of us may not be around to observe Year 60. So, we have to tell our stories while we’re still around.

I’m going to post links to many of the photos I took during the protest era. I’d love to have names and current contact info for as many as possible so I could interview and photograph some of us who lived through this era.

On our way to get riot gear

We were on our way to Kent

This post appeared on my bike blog in 2009. It recounted about how another photographer and I were going to stop at a surplus store in Marietta for gas masks and other riot gear before heading up to Kent State.

Along the way, we got the word about the shootings, picked up our gear and headed back to Athens.

Shortly after we crossed over into Athens county, a deputy pulled us over.

“We got a call from a surplus store over in Marietta that some student hippy-types were buying up riot gear and heading to Athens. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

I confessed that “that would be us.”

“Do you know anything I should know?” he asked.

“Just being ready,” I replied. “Your guess about what’s going to happen is as good as mine.”

Protest era timeline

From start to finish, first pass

This was my first pass at going through my film an creating a timeline from peaceful marches to the closing of the university.

There’s a huge gallery, but the software that created it was “improved,” so it’s a little hard to navigate. Sorry.

Frat boys attack

Student vs students

A line of frat boys and jocks lined up to administer some street justice to students who didn’t look like them. It was one of the few student-on-student encounters I saw, and it didn’t last long.

Chubb Library occupied

A night spent in Chubb Library

The empty Chubb Library was occupied. Damage was minimal, if any.

On the other hand, this was the night newlywed Lila was going to host her first ever dinner party for us newsies. Unfortunately for me, all of us were otherwise occupied, and cell phones hadn’t been invented yet.

Sings of the times

A mixture of sign-carriers

It might have been a cold night in Athens when I shot these in 1968.

O.U. is not your mother

The birth of student rights

Restrictions on OU women were less draconian that those at SE MO State College, but the women challenged dorm hour rules.

Martin Luther King National Day of Mourning

Not the usual rites of spring crowd

A solemn salt-and-pepper crowd spontaneously took over Court and Union. A miscue by Athens PD Capt. Charlie Cochran came close to touching off a serious riot.

Dean Kahler is an inspiration

Paralyzed by a Guard bullet

Dean Kahler, was paralyzed when the National Guard opened fire. He was an innocent bystander 300 feet away from the closest shooter.

Follow the link to hear Dean in his own words.

“I knew I had been shot because it felt like a bee sting. I knew immediately because my legs got real tight, then they relaxed just like in zoology class when you pith a frog,” he said.

Kent State Pagoda

Seeing it made it real

I remember the first time I went to Washington, D.C., and was overwhelmed when I discovered that buildings I had only seen in print and on TV were real.

Seeing the Kent State Pagoda where the Guard went on their killing spree brought May 4 to life for me.

It’s not all grim

I was amused at this exchange

The student was offering a state trooper sandwiches and drinks. The lawman’s good-natured expression seems to be saying, “You’ve got to be kidding me if you think I’d eat something you made.”

Different memories

Compare and contrast

Jackson High School students were preparing for their prom in 2014. They will have entirely different memories of May 4 than us Boomers.

How soon they forget

You mean something happened here?

I climbed the steps of Lindley Hall to recreate this photo in 2013 when I was in town for an exhibit.

Some students saw me, so I walked over and said, “You know, the last time I stood on that landing and took a picture looking down Court Street it was May 15, 1970. Tear gas was wafting through the air and there was a National Guardsman with a rifle spaced about every 25 feet.”

“Really? Something happened here?” one of them asked, giving me a “is this old geezer harmless?” look.

Portrait of a pandemic

So much for going back to Athens

Curator Jessica and I were well on the way to making plans for the 50th anniversary of May 4 when the plug was pulled on the world.

Maybe you all will give me the info I need to do a proper accounting for 2025.

October 17, 2023October 17, 2023

Flies in the Window

When I was working at The Gastonia Gazette in North Carolina, I was a member of the rescue squad.

One of the dreaded calls was “Welfare check: neighbor reports flies on the window next door.” Too often, that meant someone was dead. Long, liquefied dead.

That was brought to mind when my Cape kitchen was suddenly full of houseflies the first time the weather turned cold. I found this sticky thing got rid of most of them in a few days before my neighbors dialed 9-1-1.

My days on the squad

I don’t want to exaggerate my contribution to the Gastonia Rescue and First Aid Squad, which was made up of volunteers, many of whom were “lintheads” who were looked down upon by the community’s movers and shakers – until they had a heart attack or piled up their car.

I got on because John Stepp, a Gastonia fire captain, and captain of the rescue squad, saw that I had PR value. He gave me permission to buy an ancient two-way radio to put in my car so I could know what they were working. They went on enough “good” calls that pictures of them made the paper almost every week.

Even though I had taken basic first aid training, my utility and level of expertise soon became clear. Because I was roaming all over the area, I was often first on the scene. I would radio in a situation report, then provide aid and comfort to the injured by hollering, “I hear ’em comin.’ I hear ’em comin.'”

John was a rough-and-tumble firefighter who was a natural leader of men. He was also like a second father to me.

Capt. Stepp explained Southern life to me

The crew was a United Way agency, so we had to appear before a board of suits to get our budget approved. Red King, a textile worker, was treasurer, if I remember correctly. I had been elected secretary, so the two of us, along with Stepp had to appear before the board.

The UW group asked poor Red all kinds of detailed questions that were designed to get him flustered – “Why do you need a telephone in the dormitory area?” for example.

Finally, I had enough. I told the suits that Red wasn’t the guy you would want doing your income taxes, but he’s definitely the one you wanted next to you if you suddenly clutched your chest and collapsed of a heart attack.

I turned to Stepp and suggested that our group go out into the hall for a conference.

“Let’s walk”

I told my fellow crewmen that we were the most popular agency under the UW umbrella. We could go alone, and probably make more money than what UW would give us.

Stepp calmed me down. “You don’t understand how things work down here. Those guys jerk us around to show who runs this county. They’re going to give us everything we ask for, like always. If we pull out, it’s going to hurt a lot of agencies that don’t have the public support we do. We’re going to go back in, let them strut and bluster, then they’ll approve our budget request.”

It happened just like he predicted, but I never supported United Way again.

They trusted me with a dead man

When things were slow at the paper, I’d hang around the crew hall answering the phones and playing dispatcher.

An unknown emergency at a construction site north of town came in, and two rigs went to check it out. I volunteered to stick around. I called the office and had Kermit Hull, another photographer, drift that way in case it turned out to be something newsworthy.

As soon as the crew arrived, they told me to jump in the rescue truck that had all the heavy equipment in it and come fast because a trench had collapsed, burying several men.

This was my first Code 3 (lights and siren) run. When I got about a quarter mile from the scene, I hit a traffic backup. Driving on the wrong side of the road was a new – and scary – experience for me. Fortunately, an 18-wheeler in the oncoming lane flashed his lights to let me know he was going to hold back the traffic.

As soon as I rolled up, they told me to hop in the back of an ambulance to feed oxygen to the first man they had recovered. In retrospect, I realize they had already determined that the man was dead, and there wasn’t much I could do to make his condition worse.

I was given the Goodbye to a Yankee Award

At the end of the year, after I had given notice to The Gazette that I was headed to The Palm Beach Post, the rescue squad held its annual banquet with lots of good-humored banter, and awards given to members for outstanding performance.

Much to my surprise, I was called forward to receive The Sparkplug Award, for my efforts at the trench cave-in.

I turned to Lila, who had only heard snatches of my exploits that day, and said, “They didn’t give me that for my heroics, it was their way of saying, ‘Thank goodness, we’re going to have one less Yankee in town.'”

January 31, 2021January 31, 2021

Celebrity Beat: Vaughn Monroe

I was the wrong guy to send out to shoot celebrities. For the most part, there was a good chance I wouldn’t have a clue who they were, and it was embarrassing to try to dodge around that fact.

Secondly, with maybe one or two exceptions, I never found them to be interesting subjects. They had their public face, and they kept the mask on.

I DID shoot a picture of Sandy Dennis in Palm Beach that captured what thought was her real personality. I sent her a copy, but I don’t know if I ever got a response. Maybe I’ll run across that shot when I’m least expecting it.

Meet Monroe at home in Jupiter Inlet Colony

Anyway, the photo request in the winter of 1973 said for me to hop on my pony and head up to Jupiter Inlet Colony, a ritzy address, but not quite as hoity toity as just up the road on Jupiter Island proper.

I had at least HEARD of Vaughn Monroe, but I can’t say as how I was much of a fan.

He was gracious and easy to shoot. Before I left, he asked if I’d like a copy of his latest album. I usually didn’t take anything from a subject, but I sensed it would be rude to say no. I didn’t even have the sense to ask him to autograph it.

It may still be in its original shrinkwrap with the rest of the music on my wall of vinyl.