REBECCA KIGER

WHEELING — Local photographer Rebecca Kiger has won a second major award for her work covering the East Palestine train derailment and its aftermath.

Kiger has been announced as the recipient of a World Press Photo award under the category “North and Central America — Stories.” The award from World Press Photo is one of the “big three” in the photography world, Kiger explained.

The first is an award in the Pictures of the Year International Competition. Kiger was among the six finalists this year for the POY Community Awareness Award announced in early March.

The second is the World Press Photo Award, and the third is the Pulitzer Prize that will be announced in May.

Kiger expressed both excitement and surprise over the World Press Photo award, and noted she never expected to ever win. There are 60,000 submissions, and 42 photographers are awarded in the competition.

“No, never,” she said. “I’m still in shock. It’s a biggie.

“I have the World Press Photo books. I’ve watched the work they have awarded for years. I can’t believe they chose my book.”

The World Press Photo organization is based in The Hague, Netherlands.

“The exciting part is they pay for the winners to go to the Netherlands,” Kiger said. “They get to take part in workshops, and present their work to the public in the Netherlands.

“It’s the beginning of these works travelling the world to be seen.”

An awards ceremony dinner hosted by the prince of the Netherlands also is part of the visit for the winning photographers.

Kiger said she will be making the trip alone. Her husband David is a physical therapist, and daughter Olivia is a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy.

“I’m just going,” she explained “It will be five days jam-packed with activities with photographers. Hopefully, we will get some down time, but probably we will just be sharing a lot with each other.

“Doing documentary work in photojournalism, I want to know what their lives are like. Sometimes I can feel alone here. It is great to have communities that can form in other ways.”

Kiger works as artist in residence at Bellaire High School, a position funded by the Ohio Arts Council.

“I do not have a long-term photography project right now… but my things tend to happen organically,” she said.

Kiger was honored for her work on assignment for Time Magazine covering the train wreck in East Palestine in 2023 and its aftermath, which took place over the course of a year. Her work was funded through a grant from the Center for Contemporary Documentation.

“Whenever somebody in the Ohio Valley has an accomplishment, everyone can feel a sense of pride,” she said. “I hope this helps the people of East Palestine be seen and heard, and is a call for the Norfolk Southern Railroad to fulfill promises made.”

Kiger said the railroad had promised to build a first responder training center in East Palestine as a thank you to the more than 70 fire department units who responded to the derailment and the fire it caused.

“They (firefighters) found ways to keep people alive,” she continued. “When something bad happens, you don’t want it to happen to you and this center would have trained people regionally.

“I was there when they broke ground, and now it is not happening. It’s heartbreaking to them.”

The promise was made by a former CEO for Norfolk Southern, though no binding contract was ever signed, Kiger explained. There was only a “gentleman’s agreement.”

“Then when the gentleman was no longer there, there was no longer a gentleman’s agreement,” she continued.

“The government and Norfolk Southern need to promise they will continue to monitor health impacts in East Palestine, provide health care from those impacts, and continue to test the water there. That is only fair to the people who live there. Now is not the time to go cutting regulations.”

Kiger is pleased she was involved with archiving East Palestine’s story so the world could see it.

“It will be in a book, and part of a traveling exhibition in the world,” she said. “That’s why we do the work we do, so that stories are seen and heard and powers that be are made to account.”