A plastic table fan quietly hummed in the window, directing a weak stream of hot mid-afternoon air though Paul Moloney's study. The room was cramped. The late summer heat made everything seem more quiet than usual despite an impending deadline. Small stuffed animals rested around the study, mindlessly gazing across boxes of negatives, reams of paper, books, Zip disks and CDs. Three baseball caps representing his favorite teams-- the St. Louis Cardinals, the Colorado Rockies and Eaton High School, where his grand-son plays-- hung above his computer.

"I'll still patronize my hometown team, even though I'm a Saint Louis fan," he said. A fourth cap depicted his favorite cartoon character, Yosemite Sam. Moloney leaned in closer to his computer, scanning the iMac desktop filled with icons. "Which one do we want?" he asked. "Vincent Price. We've got to have Vincent Price."

Downstairs, a set of photographic prints were neatly placed on a bathroom towel in the middle of his living room. His son Lex waited on the recliner, watching TV, waiting to discuss the mock cover he designed for Moloney's upcoming book, Friends and Celebrities, a retrospective of close to a half century of Moloney's photography.

Nearly 50 years ago, Moloney moved away from the place he still refers to as home-- Monte Vista in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. The valley is America's largest alpine valley, a desert-like landscape of sagebrush and wizened pine trees mixed with small farms cradled between the Sangre de Christo and San Juan mountains. Spirits of history still drift restlessly through the valley, which is home to Colorado's earliest European settlement, San Luis.

"It's God's gift to the earth," Moloney said. His eyes became more focused behind his '50s style plastic rimmed glasses. His voice became more serious as thoughts of his past, his friends and his home drifted through his mind. "It has all kinds of landscape. The mountain areas are the Switzerland of America. The farms are simply wonderful. It is sandy and the wind blows. The winters are bitter, but it's simply beautiful when the frost is on the trees."

Moloney's past is intertwined with the valley, one of his favorite subjects to photograph. His two great grandfathers, Dario Gallegos and Juan Salazar, were members of the San Luis founding party. His grandfather, A. A. Salazar, represented the area in the state legislature and ran a general store, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1955. On April 26, 1933-- the day construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge-- Moloney was the last child born at Mrs. Scheesley's, a midwife in Alamosa.

As Moloney grew up, he developed his love for baseball, occasionally joining his father on one of his many trips to Mexican Hill, where he would park his 1950 Chevy on the railway tracks to get better radio reception and listen to baseball games on KMOX 1100 AM out of St. Louis.

"I kind of rekindled [my father's] love for baseball," Moloney said. "All through high school, I would listen to the games. When I was 10 years old, I was ill at Christmas time. Dad went out and bought me a copy of The Sporting News. I loved it so much, he gave me a subscription." Moloney decided to turn his love for the game into a career, earning a journalism certificate along with his bachelor of science degree in 1956. "Dad said, 'You're the luckiest man on the face of the earth,'" Moloney said. "I said, 'Why?' He said, 'Because you get to attend all of the sporting events and get paid for it.'"

Shortly after Moloney graduated from college, he began working at the Greeley Tribune as a sports reporter. It was there his career as a photojournalist was pressed on him. "It was frightening," he said. "I was on the job three days, and the editor came up to me and said, 'By the way Paul, you're also the sports photographer.' I was 23. I went home and cried." Moloney's photographic career didn't take off until 1960, when he won an award from the American Association of College Baseball Coaches. "I was really a passive photographer at that point," he said. "That made me an active photographer. After 45 years, I'm still active."

"Which one do you like better?" Moloney asked his wife, Annette, while holding two prints of Vincent Price. Without hesitation, she silently pointed to one. "Then it's unanimous," he said, placing the photographs back on the table next to the mock up cover. "What do you think of the cover?" he asked. Annette answered in a matter-of-fact tone that developed out of years of opinions during late-night printing sessions. "Do you think Brooke Shields looks better on her back?" Moloney asked as he shifted the cover across the table.

Friends and Celebrities, published by the Greeley Tribune and due out in early November, is the third book Moloney has produced. "We've been talking with Paul [about the book] for three or four months," said Tribune publisher Jim Elsberry. "But I have to say the decision was made within the first five minutes that he brought the idea to us. Paul's been associated with the Greeley Tribune for more than 40 years. Nobody knows Weld County better. He's also the most nationally recognized photographer we've ever worked with."

His previous two self-published books-- Images of the Valley, which Tedd Walker was published in 1984, and Saguache, published two years later-- document his ongoing love for the day-to-day lives of ordinary people.

"I have more in common with the average person than with the celebrities," he said. "I can develop a rapport with anybody. That's the secret of my photography. I'm telling the stories for people who can't tell their stories."

His self-imposed mission to document life gained new meaning on February 9, 1996, when Moloney suffered a heart attack while teaching at the Colorado Institute of Art. The attack forced him to retire from teaching.

"I kind of freaked out," said Casper Star Tribune photographer Dan Cepeda, one of Moloney's former students. "Emotionally, he wasn't as lit up as before. He seemed tired. He was one of the most important people in my life, definitely at the time. He was the only person keeping me going professionally."

Almost nine months following his retirement, the Colorado Institute of Art featured Moloney's work along with his brother Bud and his son Kevin, a photographer for the New York Times. "I don't ever remember him being so proud," Cepeda said. "It was good to have all of his students come out and see it. It was really good for him. Paul is a guru. He's the photographic zen meister. He's probably been more inspiration to more kids than anybody."

After the exhibit, Moloney's love for photography and life reemerged. "The show just rekindled my enthusiasm for life and it's been on high speed every since," Moloney said. "It changed my life, much for the better. I retired and didn't have the stress of an unreasonable madness of being in a hurry. It has given me a chance to thoroughly enjoy my photography."

The photos of celebrities-- Andy Warhol, Mother Theresa and Alan Alda to name a few-- originated from his assignments at the Tribune. "Most of them were in Denver and Greeley and Fort Collins," he said. "Carter and Reagan were campaigning. The others were involved with world premiers in Denver. Jimmy Dean and Roy Clark preformed at the World Stampede."

While Moloney feels he has more in common with the ordinary person, many of the celebrities hold fond places in his memory. "All of the Hollywood people I've encountered have been very, very pleasant, with the exception of one, and I'm not going to mention that person's name," Moloney said. "Vincent Price was very congenial and outgoing. Brooke Shields was very much a 15 year old when I photographed her. She had not yet developed that Hollywood profile. She was very human."

As the book's deadline approaches, Moloney is already thinking about his next project, one that has been in the works for several years. "I've got to devote some time to the Moloney and Henscheid family albums," he said. "That's a major project."

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