Born in Toledo, Ohio, he started taking pictures while attending Kent State University and quickly developed a reputation as a premier spot news photographer. He covered the fatal shooting of four students during a Vietnam War protest at Kent State on May 4, 1970. He left the university to work for the Record-Courier in Kent, Ohio, later moving to Cleveland to work for United Press International and then for the Pittsburgh Press. He joined UPI's photo desk in Washington in 1985 and became an editor for AFP five years later. With a bearlike frame and gentle manner, Mr. Fetters was known as a voracious reader, a cat lover, a baseball fanatic, an avid sailor and collector of memorabilia from old pens to antique radios.
Funeral arrangements are pending.