Background
Paul Vathis was born on October 18, 1925, in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, United States. He was one of eight children of Greek immigrant parents in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania.
Serious Steps, Vathis's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph
Then-Gov. Tom Ridge dashes into the press pool covering the National Governors Association 92nd Annual Meeting to greet Associated Press photographer Paul Vathis, a familiar face from Harrisburg
Paul Vathis was born on October 18, 1925, in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, United States. He was one of eight children of Greek immigrant parents in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania.
Paul Vathis joined the Associated Press (AP) in Philadelphia as a copy boy in January 1946, was promoted first to a wire photo operator, and then a staff photographer in 1949, when he transferred to their Pittsburgh bureau. In 1950 he again transferred, this time to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where, to date, he still worked for AP.
In 1962, Paul Vathis took a picture of President John F. Kennedy and former President Dwight Eisenhower walking together at Camp David. He covered such events as Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point basketball game in 1962, where he originally was just taking his son Randy to see a game and the Budd Dwyer suicide in 1987 at the Harrisburg capitol building. In 1979, Paul Vathis helped cover the nation's worst nuclear power accident at Three Mile Island.
Paul Vathis died in 2002 in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
A member of both the American Newspaper Guild and the Society of Professional Journalists.