Filo said the victory was important because he had been angry at the world that day. Working full time so he could pay his school expenses did not leave him time to be a "normal" college student.

"It just happened to coincide with a day when I felt I had something to prove, when I felt very innocent," Filo said. "I was angry about being a lab technician and everyone else was able to do the fun stuff."

Filo's photos were used by Life magazine for its coverage of the shooting. At an award ceremony later that year in New York City, Filo and his parents sat at a table with Walter Cronkite. His mother, who never liked the fact that he'd changed his major from pre-med to photography, leaned over to her son and asked him, "Now that you got all this, don't you want to go on to dental school?"

Looking back, Filo said he "just sort of laughed" at his mother's remark. "It's a typical 'mom' response.

"I felt like I had to pay back everything. There are people who work all their lives at this without much adulation. But I knew I didn't know anything. I knew I had to pay my dues."

Filo's parents had stopped paying their son's school expenses when he changed his major after two years at Kent State.

"When I decided to go into photography, they sort of said, "You're on your own,' " Filo said.

His mother, Mary Jane Filo, acknowledged that she and her husband, John, had been disappointed when their son decided not to be a dentist. "He was our first born," she said. "I guess we just felt we wanted him to be more financially secure. It's important, though, that he's happy doing what he's doing, so of course we're happy for him now."

Filo, currently the deputy director of photography for Sports Illustrated, said the shootings on May 4 have affected every aspect of his life.

Filo is a quiet, reflective, modest man, which seems to defy his 6-foot-four build and lumbering demeanor. He jokes easily and is a known storyteller, but the Pulitzer, although an important point in his life, does not come up easily in conversation. The Daily News entered his photo for the prize, and Filo is believed to be the youngest award winner.

Photographer Eddie Adams, whom Filo considers his mentor, has known Filo since they worked at competing newspapers in the Tarentum-New Kensington area. Filo had worked at The Daily News during the summer in high school, and Adams met him when he gave him an assignment.

"I called him up and told him he could shoot my sister's wedding for free," Adams said, laughing. "And he did."

Adams later worked 15 years for Time magazine, as well as the Associated Press and the Philadelphia Bulletin. He was a war photographer in Vietnam, and he received a Pulitzer for a photo of a Vietcong soldier being shot in the temple.

He remembers when Filo won his Pulitzer.

"The problem with John is when he first won the Pulitzer, it went to his head. His head just swelled," Adams said. "But that didn't last long because I just chopped him up. I just gave him hell.

"From that point on, he grew on to be quite a talented, mature photographer."

Adams, who has been a judge for the awards, said winning a Pulitzer often is a matter of luck. Some winners had never taken a photo before they won the award and haven't taken a photo since, he said.

"A lot of times the prize is given for the event and not the photograph," Adams said. "That doesn't mean a person is good because he wins a Pulitzer Prize."

For Filo, the most memorable part of winning the prize was a telegram he received from Adams. It read: "Congratulations on your Pulitzer Prize. Let's see what you can do tomorrow."

Filo said, "I probably pull that out and look at it more often than I do the prize."