Michael McCollum, who worked as staff photographer at the Pajaronian from1987 to 1996, died March 9 in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was 67.
Born on April 27, 1957, to Garland McCollum and Katherine Fromm-McCollum in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada, Mik was 2 when the family moved to Watsonville and settled into a home on Emme Street just off of Freedom Boulevard at Buena Vista Drive.
McCollum worked his way through local schools and graduated as a Wildcat from Watsonville High, class of ’75. His wife, Carrie, said Mike worked a variety of jobs but his love of photography led him to a position at Bay Photo Lab in Watsonville Square near Nob Hill.
He was eventually hired as a photojournalist at the Pajaronian when it was based in the former Safeway building that now houses Grocery Outlet.
There, he worked alongside photographers Sam Vestal, Kurt Ellison, Chip Scheuer, Chris Stuart and Diane Varni in covering the spectrum of Pajaro Valley news and beyond, from school graduations to the Burrito Bash, car crashes, fires, shootings, new businesses, floods, festivals and fairs.
He played a huge role in covering the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, and spent one day riding around in a bus surveying the damage with Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger.
McCollum married Varni’s daughter, Carrie. After he left the Pajaronian, McCollum and family moved to Lathrop, where he worked as a photographer for the Manteca Bulletin for eight years. Then he moved over for a two-year stint as a photographer for the Stockton Record.
He earned a list of awards, including first place in the Associated Press Feature Photo. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001.
Their family then moved to Tennessee, where they lived for the last nine years.
“We went on so many adventures there and saw so many beautiful places,” Carrie said. “He was very talented in putting photos to music. He loved bird photography and especially loved egrets. We traveled to so many places around the world and Mike always came home with beautiful photos of our journeys.”
“Mike spent his whole life looking at the stars and on March 9, 2025, he became one of them,” his obit reads.
Carrie said the family plans to scatter his ashes in August near the Alabama hills.
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Writer’s note: I had the privilege to work alongside Mike for a couple of years as a freelance photographer. He showed me the ropes of the Register Pajaronian newsroom and the photographer’s darkroom. We chased after a few news stories, including a flood that washed through Soquel Village late at night. HIs passion for photography was in plain sight. He knew his gear well and was well known in the local world of law, fire, schools, parks, agriculture and much more. When Mike announced he was moving on, he held my hand through the door of the RP and essentially handed me his former position of photojournalist in 1997.
I always appreciated his calm, common-sense approach to his work and people around him. He was a kind person, soft-spoken, and he always left a window open for a joke, a pun or a nutty take on a photo assignment that others may have passed off as commonplace. —Tarmo Hannula
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See McCollum’s obit at lummynattfh.com/obituaries/michael-mccollum
