Heikes, Darryl

For decades, Darryl Heikes’ photographs appeared in leading publications worldwide including on the front pages of the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the Washington Post and the covers of U. S. News and World Report. Throughout his career, many of his photographs have won awards from the White House News Photographers Association, Picture of the Year Competition, and World Press.

Heikes began his career in photojournalism taking photographs for the Salina High School newspaper in Kansas. While enrolled as a student at Kansas State University, Heikes was a stringer for United Press International (UPI), Associated Press (AP), the Kansas City Star, Topeka Capital Journal and the Salina Journal. In 1961, UPI recruited Heikes to work as a wire service photographer. For the next twenty years he worked at the bureaus in Kansas City, Oklahoma City, in Austin, Texas on contract with the Austin American Statesman and in Dallas on contract with the Dallas Times Herald, Madison, Wisconsin (1964-1965), Minneapolis (1966-1967), and Washington D C (1967-1981).

In 1981 Heikes began covering the White House for U.S. News and World Report. He traveled with Presidents Johnson and Nixon to Russia and the Middle East. He covered President Ford’s summit with world leaders in Finland, President Carter’s Middle East shuttle diplomacy, President Reagan’s Finland summit with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and President George H. W. Bush’s trips to meet with world leaders. He was present at the funeral of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, President Clinton’s summits with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and most of the G7. Heikes additionally covered the political campaigns of George McGovern and Richard Nixon in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, Gerald Ford in 1976, Ronald Reagan in 1984, Walter Mondale in 1984, George H.W. Bush in 1988 and 1992, Michael Dukakis in 1988, Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 and Bob Dole in 1996.

Heikes also excelled at sports photography, most notably while covering the Olympics in Mexico City, Munich, and Montreal. He captured Bob Beamon’s world record-breaking long jump in 1968, Jim Ryun’s tragic fall and Russian gymnast Olga Korbut in 1972, and Romanian gymnast Nadia Comenci in 1976. Following the Israeli athletes massacre in Munich, he photographed the negotiations between the terrorists and German officials.

Darryl Heikes retired in 2001 and lives with his wife Dell in Winchester, Virginia.

From the guide to the Darryl Heikes Photographs AR 2006-31; 2007-205; 2007-187., 1960-2001, (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)