NPPA Life Member Rocco Morabito, 88
JACKSONVILLE, FL (April 13, 2009) – Retired Jacksonville Journal photographer and Pulitzer Prize-winner Rocco Morabito died April 5 in hospice care, his family reports. The National Press Photographers Association Life Member was 88 and had been in declining health.
Morabito's "Kiss Of Life" photograph of a utility worker saving the life of a fellow lineman in 1967 won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1968 for himself and the Jacksonville Journal, before the newspaper merged with the Times-Union.
The photograph showed an apprentice lineman dangling from a pole while being given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Like many of his era, Morabito started in journalism as a newsboy at the age of 9. His family remembers the the story of their grandfather selling a newspaper to baseball legend Babe Ruth as the star traveled south by train for Spring training. After World War II, Morabito worked his way into the photography department after holding jobs in the Journal's circulation department, the Times-Union said, and into the newsroom where he wrote news and sports stories.
Morabito's Pulitzer-winning photograph was shot on July 17, 1967, as the photographer was on his way back from covering a railroad strike. Looking for another photograph he spied some linemen working on poles. When he parked and got out to shoot he heard workers yelling and saw one of the linemen dangling upside down atop a pole. The young worker had been shocked by a live wire. Morabito used his car radio to call the paper and have them call for an ambulance before he started shooting, the Times-Union said, and then he captured the famous moment when another worker climbed the pole and started giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The newspaper held its final deadline so that Morabito could get back to the newsroom and the picture could run.
For 42 years Morabito worked for the Journal, 33 years as a photographer, until he retired in 1982. He entered the Army Air Corps in 1943 and was a B-17 ball-turret gunner in World War II, flying 34 combat missions for which he was decorated.
He is survived by his daughters Anne Morabito and Tina Frady, both of Jacksonville, FL, and grandson John Frady, of Tallahassee.
Time-Union photojournalist and NPPA member Bruce Lipsky wrote a remembrance of Morabito that is online here.
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