KANSAS CITY, MO (May 20, 2008) – Friends of Kansas City Star photographer and writer Tim Janicke have organized a print sale to raise money to help their friend and colleague after he was diagnosed with brain cancer.
Kansas City Star features photography editor Mary Schulte says that Janicke has had surgery, has undergone radiation and chemotherapy, and is having another round of chemotherapy now while going onto long-term disability. "Which means that his company insurance has been terminated," Schulte wrote in a note asking photographers to donate prints for the sale.
"We want to help Tim, his wife Paula and kids Natasha and Andrew, with their healthcare nightmare by raising some money to help offset the astronomical costs they are facing," Schulte said in an eMail to photojournalists. "We are going to have an online print sale to raise money ... We talked about an auction, but a sale seems to make more sense in terms of the hassle factor and the need to make things happen fast."
Janicke, who first joined NPPA in 1974, has been the editor of the paper's Sunday magazine as well as an adjunct professor of photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Communications at the University of Kansas. Previously he was also the newspaper's assistant managing editor of photography, and he's held other editing positions at the newspaper.
Schulte asks photographers who are interested in donating an image to the print sale to send her a matted print along with the price that the image should sell for. "I don't want to offend anybody by pricing something too low, or overpricing it so it won't sell," Schulte said. "The key here is to raise money."
She would also like to receive a low-resolution JPEG file of the image so that it can be posted in an online gallery of the images that are up for sale. The JPEG file should be mailed to timjanickeauction@gmail.com.
The Web site is being built and the URL will be announced soon. It will be administered by The Kansas City Star's online store, and all of the money collected (minus the mailing costs of sending purchased prints to the buyers) will be deposited in a special bank account set up for Janicke.
Prints can be mailed to Schulte at: Mary Schulte, Features Photography Editor/Children's Book Reviewer, The Kansas City Star, 2nd Floor Newsroom, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, MO, 64108.
For more information contact Schulte at mschulte@kcstar.com.
