We all love living in The Bokey, but from time to time it’s good to leave the ZIP Code to broaden our horizons.
No matter where you travel, though, you’ll find The Bokey is making a positive mark far and wide.
This past weekend I traveled to our nation’s capital. Among the memorials, monuments and other sites of interest, I made a stop at the Newseum, an interactive museum dedicated to news and journalism.
The curators had assembled a large display on the fifth floor honoring editorial cartoons. Of all the great editorial cartoonists who have ever practiced the craft, the curators chose to feature a single cartoonist –Sanford’s very own Doug Marlette.
Some of Marlette’s first published works were cartoons he did for the sports section of the Sanford Herald. He later went on to bigger and better gigs, including stints at the Atlanta Journal Constitution and New York Newsday.
In 1981 he was the first cartoonist ever awarded a Nieman Fellowship. In 1988 he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, and during his career won every major editorial cartooning award.
Marlette also created the comic strip Kudzu, which was eventually adapted into a musical comedy.
In 2001, he published his first novel “The Bridge,” which won several awards. He followed up with a second novel in 2006 titled “Magic Time.”
Unfortunately Marlette’s life was cut short in 2007 when his pickup truck hydroplaned during a heavy thunderstorm and struck a tree as he traveled to Oxford, Miss.
Marlette’s nephew Andy (Facebook), a Seminole High School graduate, followed in his uncle’s footsteps and currently is the editorial cartoonist for the Pensacola News Journal.
So remember, wherever you go in this world, chances are you will find a connection to The Bokey.
– by Dan Ping
Sanford, Fla. 