William Genaust was the Marine Corps photographer who stood beside Joseph Rosenthal atop Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, and captured color movie images of the famous flag-raising 75 years ago today. Genaust never got off of the island as he was killed in action 9 days later and his remains were never recovered. Rosenthal would win the Pulitzer Prize for his famous photograph. Back in 1998 I read a book titled "Immortal Images" by Tedd Thomey. In the book Tedd mentioned that Genaust had graduated from high school in Pipestone, MN, which is where I graduated. I had never heard of this man before reading the book. I started corresponding with Mr. Thomey and together we contacted the local newspaper in Pipestone and they soon put together a two part series of articles about the forgotten hometown hero. Thomey and I created a framed tribute to William and presented it to the city. The tribute now hangs in the city library. I was fortunate enough to track down a high school yearbook from the year that Genaust graduated which he had signed in two places.
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This is fantastic. Thank you for doing this and writing it up. :-)
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