bill alkofer, former Pioneer Press photojournalist, dies at 61

Molly Guthrey, Kristi Miller, Pioneer Press
Updated ·8 min read
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bill alkofer could no longer lift a camera, but he was still a journalist.

“The last time I saw him, a couple of days before he died, we looked at slides,” says Craig Lassig, a fellow photojournalist and friend. “We were looking at slides of his photos of Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols and David Byrne from Talking Heads. I was holding a light table and a loop against his eye so he could look at the slides and decide what pictures he wanted to give to friends.”

alkofer, a former Pioneer Press photojournalist who had been living with a variation of ALS for about five years, died on Friday at Sholom in St. Paul. He was 61.

(He had legally changed his name to a lowercase format, so we are honoring that in the styling for this obituary.)

If one photograph can encapsulate his career and his determination to always get the photo, for alkofer that image might be from the Grand Forks flood in North Dakota. On April 19, 1997, as a Pioneer Press photojournalist also working for our then-sister paper, the Grand Forks Herald, he waded into the city’s floodwaters to capture the image of firefighters standing hip-deep in water, hooking up a hose to a fire hydrant, ultimately unable to extinguish a fire that was consuming the Security Building and, eventually, 10 other buildings.

“I wish I could go back,” alkofer said in a 2021 interview, “and whisper to 1997 bill, ‘This is the most important photo of your life.’ ”

In 1998, the staff of the Grand Forks Herald was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in public service “for its sustained and informative coverage, vividly illustrated with photographs, that helped hold its community together in the wake of flooding, a blizzard and a fire that devastated much of the city, including the newspaper plant itself.”

North Dakota roots

A native of North Dakota, alkofer got his start in journalism about an hour northwest of Grand Forks.

“During high school,” his family writes in his obituary, “bill had the good fortune of working for Henry Kelly at the Walsh County Press where he developed a passion for photojournalism, which would ultimately turn into a 40-year career.”

After graduating as valedictorian of the class of 1980 at Park River High School — where he was reportedly known for his pranks as well as his intelligence — alkofer went on to study at the University of North Dakota. He also worked for the student newspaper, the Dakota Student, as a photojournalist.

He met Corrine Kenner at the college paper; they would later marry and have two daughters before divorcing.

“bill was one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met,” Kenner recalls. “He was charming and charismatic, and he could talk to anyone about anything. I think that’s one of the reasons his photography touched so many hearts. He connected with the people he photographed before he even picked up his camera.”

His work — and his approach to work and life — also influenced his daughters. Katherine Alkofer, 33, is a Catholic-school kindergarten teacher who shares her father’s devout faith. She teaches at St. Peter Elementary School in DeLand, Florida. Emily Alkofer, 30, is an American Sign Language interpreter who shares his optimism and gift of gab. She works with deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Volusia County, Florida.

“I remember he had a photo of a ballerina on pointe in a rundown old stadium,” Emily Alkofer says. “I would look at that photo and dream of being a ballerina. His work was so beautiful and inspiring. I always looked up to him and his passion and drive is something he passed down in both my sister and I. He always said find your raison d’etre, your reason for being, and do what you love. He was proud of me and my sister for becoming a teacher and a sign language interpreter and following our passions too and we have him to thank for that.”

After his diagnosis, alkofer and his college newspaper friends reunited by Zoom; the reunion was a regular one, every other Sunday at noon, a chance to check in with bill but also to reminisce about their college days. Like alkofer himself, it was a fun group.

“We started it because of bill, he was the reason for it,” says friend and fellow journalist Ron Nies. “On Tuesday, the last time I saw him, I read him a text that a Zoom group member had written, marveling at his ability to create a tribe and maintain a tribe. Even as he lost the ability to do so many other things, he brought us all back together.”

Coming home

It was at 6:53 p.m. and 41 seconds on Oct. 19, 2018 — a time documented on his camera — when alkofer realized something was wrong.

“I know the time because I was taking a picture at a high school football game,” alkofer told the Pioneer Press in 2021. “I tried to lift the camera over my head — and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lift up the camera.”

This moment eventually led to the diagnosis, a variation of ALS — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease). There is currently no cure for the progressive condition that steals a person’s ability to move, talk, swallow and — eventually — to breathe.

He was working for the Orange County Register in California at the time; he decided it was time to head home. Not to North Dakota, but to Minnesota, where he spent many years working for the Pioneer Press. This is the place where he still has many friends as well as family.

“He made a decision to come back to die,” says Richard Marshall, a former colleague who helped care for his best friend.

There was still living to be done, though.

“I’d say, ‘How you doing?’ and he’d say, ‘I’m dying,'” Marshall says. “I’d say, ‘Yeah, me, too’ and we’d carry on.'”

alkofer’s friends helped him create slideshows of his work; his archives are voluminous. Some of his photographs are part of a Pioneer Press collection at the Minnesota Historical Society (newspapers routinely donate their older archives to museums or historical societies for preservation and access).

Even if it was a slideshow of personal photos taken of him, though, alkofer could be a stickler. Photojournalist Andy Clayton-King learned this while assembling some baby photos and other biographical shots.

“He was such a perfectionist,” Clayton-King says with a laugh. “But it’s because of him I learned to do things in Premiere Pro (movie editing software) — because I had to keep starting over. I’d figure out how to do captions, then he wanted more captions, then he decided he wanted them all lowercase. In some regards, bill was never satisfied — with himself, and especially with others.”

His quest for perfection was, fortunately, paired with charm and humor.

“He will be missed,” Clayton-King says.

His happy place

“bill’s cameras took him all over the world,” his family writes in his obituary. “Some of the highlights of his career included covering Pope John Paul II in 1984 when the Pope was in Canada; the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway; the 50th anniversary of the D-Day Invasion in Normandy, France; the 1997 Grand Forks flood; the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan; and photographing Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, HW Bush, Clinton and Obama.”

The Olympics are grand and so are dignitaries, but alkofer also appreciated a minor-league baseball game.

He had a special affection for the St. Paul Saints and their old home of Midway Stadium. One of his most iconic photos shows the Saints’ Terance Frazier sliding into first base at Midway on July 17, 1995 — a photo that was not so easy to get before the GoPro. It involved a remote-control camera dug into the base.

“Midway Stadium was and remains my favorite place to take photos,” alkofer once reminisced. “It’s one of my happy places.”

‘How very lucky we were’

By the end, alkofer could mostly only move his head; he struggled to eat and to breathe. At the end, he was tired. But he was never alone.

“He was extremely well-attended to,” says his sister, Julie Lang of Excelsior. “He had three death doulas, two priests, a chaplain, a hospice care team, plus his family and his cadre of friends who showered him with attention every single day for two years. The Sholom home said no one got as much company as Bill.”

Besides his sister and his daughters and his friends, alkofer is also survived by his mother, Laura Alkofer of Park Rapids; his brother, Bob (Lara) Alkofer of Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif; his sister, Mary (Gary) Ramsey of Dickinson, N.D.; and six nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his father, Raymond, and his brother, Tom.

alkofer donated his body to the University of Minnesota for ALS research. Later, a private service will be held and his cremated remains will be buried in the family plot at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Park River, N.D.

For now, people are remembering him in their own ways, including toasting him with Grain Belt Premium, his favorite, and sharing his photos and stories about him online.

Marshall shared a last photo of alkofer, clasping a rosary from his daughters, to announce his passing.

“How very lucky we were to have had him in our lives all these years,” Marshall wrote. “As some of you may know, he has donated his body to the University of Minnesota Medical School. He is donating his heart to every one of us.”

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