Saturday was last day of the AAEC convention’s panels and discussion. It kick started with Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer speaking about livable communities – a topic he has been passionate about in his professional career as a legislator, county commissioner, city councilman, and public works commissioner.
Next up, Chicago Tribune editorial cartoonist and Dick Tracy cartoonist Dick Locher presented two videos featuring his work with cast bronze metal – one for a nine foot statue of Dick Tracy and the second a trophy created for the Land of Lincoln prize. Dick mentioned he’s coming up on this 10,000 cartoon. I’ve got a full interview with this amazing cartoonist coming later.
Next up was the membership business meeting. The minutes of that meeting will be in the next Notebook.
That evening was the annual banquet. Host Jack Ohman gave a somber reminder to attendees to be mindful of those who were not attending due to the difficult times.
Dick and Mary Locher presented Chris Sharron, the 2010 John Locher Memorial Award. Chris is a student at Kent State University.
Milt Priggee presented this year’s Golden Spike Award to Rob Rogers of the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. The Golden Spike Award goes to the best unpublished cartoon that was deemed unfit to print by the cartoonist’s editor. Rob’s cartoon featured a priest hiding Easter eggs representing pedophile victims. The cartoon was submitted to run on Good Friday. The editor killed it. It went to the syndicate and appeared in papers elsewhere the next week. In his acceptance speech, Rob said, “I knew pedophile would get me somewhere.”
AAEC president Rex Babin presented the Ink Bottle award to Anita Austin for her tireless work on the AAEC website.
The official convention ended and most regrouped at the hotel bar that was reopened for the cartoonists. At last, it was an open bar.