A prize better than a Pulitzer

The highest prize in U.S. journalism is the Pulitzer Prize.

I have never won the Pulitzer Prize.

The closest I've ever come to a Pulitzer Prize is submitting an entry, which is no easy task.

A few years ago in Topeka, Kan., I was privileged to work for a newspaper that had won a Pulitzer Prize before my arrival. Several of the individuals who had a hand in that project were still with the newspaper, so I could say I worked with Pulitzer winners.

The Topeka project that won the Pulitzer for photography showed the miracle of birth. Those were the days when delivery rooms were being opened up to daddies as well as mommies, and the newspaper's photographs showed what happens as a baby enters the world -- daring visual content for the late 1970s.

While I was in Topeka, the photo staff undertook another project that I always considered a fitting companion to the Pulitzer-winning effort: the death of an infant whose family endured weeks of hospitalization in a fight for survival.

The baby's condition required complete isolation. Every day, the parents saw their child connected to life-supporting tubes and machines with blinking lights and beeps. But they couldn't cuddle him or wiggle his toes.

The centerpiece photo of the project was one that burned an indelible image in my mind. It showed the father, moments after the baby died, dressed in a hospital gown and holding his tiny son in his arms for the first time.

I still get choked up when I think about it.

After that photo page was published in the Topeka paper, you can imagine the outpouring of emotions and compassion for the young parents.

To this day, I still think that project deserved a Pulitzer Prize.

Last week, I indirectly received a tribute that I consider to be even better than a Pulitzer Prize. It's ironic, perhaps, that this special recognition also involves a death.

When my mother came from my favorite hometown in the Ozark hills over yonder to our house for Thanksgiving dinner, she brought along my favorite hometown weekly newspaper. In it was the obituary of Katherine Hamilton, which is the reason my mother wanted me to see the paper.

Mrs. Hamilton is someone I knew by name when I was a youngster. She had been, as the obituary described, the bookkeeper for Luna Hardware for more than 40 years.

But here's what my mother told me about Mrs. Hamilton.

Like most proud mothers, my mother keeps mementos of her sons' accomplishments. She has clipped my column from the newspaper for as long as she's had access to them. As it turns out, Mrs. Hamilton also saved my columns. Perhaps she shared some of them with family and friends. Perhaps she thought rereading some of the columns would be a pleasant thing to do on a quiet evening.

But Mrs. Hamilton did not subscribe to the newspaper. Instead, she and her husband got up every Friday morning and drove about 45 miles to Fredericktown, the closest place to buy the Southeast Missourian. She would buy a paper, read my column, return home and cut out the column.

That's it.

I don't know when I've been so touched by such a simple act: driving 90 miles round trip just to read my column.

I'll bet a lot of Pulitzer winners can't put that on their resume.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.