Times Photographer Pete Sabella Helped The County See Itself

 

By Bob Bauder
© 2008 The Beaver County Times

NEW BRIGHTON, PA (October 2, 2008) – When Pete Sabella was a boy, his dad gave him a camera and offered him the following piece of fatherly advice.

“You’ll never make a living using this,” Peter Sabella told his son.

Boy was he mistaken.

For more than 44 years, Sabella, who died Wednesday, told the story of Beaver County through his camera lenses as a photographer for The Times. He shot dignitaries and ditch diggers, but preferred the latter because the regular Joes always had the best stories.

Sabella, 71, died at The Medical Center, Beaver, surrounded by his family. He had been in ill health even before his 2006 retirement from the newspaper.

The New Brighton native, who never lived anywhere but his hometown, was a tenacious photographer and always got his shot, no matter what.

“You could send him on assignment with four other photographers, and he’d always come back with the best picture,” said Harry Frye of Latrobe, who worked as a Times photographer with Sabella for 26 years. “Just ordinary (assignments), he would find some way to take a picture that really told the story.”

Sabella came to The Times in 1962 after working as a photo stringer — a freelancer paid on a per-picture basis — for the defunct News-Tribune in Beaver Falls. Retired chief photographer Rudy Schunk of Patterson Township said Sabella was ambitious from the start.

One time, he received a call from a state police officer who wanted to know whether the paper had hired a new photographer. The day before, the trooper had stopped Sabella speeding en route to a fire in Ambridge.

“Just tell him to slow down when he’s going to a fire,” the trooper said and dropped the speeding charge.

Sabella’s wife, Joanne, and four boys — Chuck, Pete Jr., John and Joe, all of New Brighton — got used to him rushing out of the house at all hours to cover breaking news. A police scanner in the kitchen was constantly on.

“Dad would be out the door,” said John Sabella. “A lot of times, we would go with him.”

He was that way until the day he retired. In October 2006, a Norfolk Southern train derailed at New Brighton while crossing the Beaver River. Multiple tanker cars exploded, sparking a spectacular fire.

After one particularly violent explosion, Joe Sabella, a New Brighton firefighter, noticed someone near the train tracks with cameras hanging from his neck. It was his 69-year-old father, on the job as usual, even though he had finished work hours earlier.

“He had to be right there when that one blew up,” Joe Sabella said.

Sabella’s philosophy was: “If you’re not going to get in their face, don’t take the picture.”

It meant getting the shot even if you had to put yourself at risk.

He was rewarded for that ethic by his peers. Sabella won numerous state and national photography awards over the years. He also served as president of the Pittsburgh Press Photographers Association, where he was named photographer of the year in 1974.

“I was never hesitant about sending him out on any kind of spot news,” said Times photo editor Clif Page. “He knew most of the people. He knew how to get there, and I knew he would come back with a picture and information that would make the picture more valuable. He was good.”

He knew everybody, from late Steelers owner Art Rooney Sr. to guys who worked in the local steel mills. His sons, who resemble their father, said they can’t go anywhere without someone asking them whether they’re Pete Sabella’s boys.

Sabella was born on August 4, 1937, in New Brighton.

He met his wife at age 16, and learned they were born the same year, in the same month and on the same day, separated only by the Beaver River. She was from Beaver Falls. They were married 52 years.

“He’s 12 hours older,” Joanne Sabella noted.

He loved to play guitar, golf, go camping and sing. He served for years as cantor at St. Joseph Church, now Holy Family Parish, in New Brighton. He also sang with the Pittsburgh Diocesan choir and would often break out into song in The Times newsroom.

“He was just a great father and a great human being,” said son Pete Jr. “I’m sure he had his enemies from having the camera in their face, but everybody I met always said they respected my dad.”

Reprinted with permission of the Beaver County Times

 

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