Iron Range native wins Pulitzer for cartoons

Kevin Siers cartoon

Kevin Siers / Charlotte Observer

An Iron Range native just won a Pulitzer Prize. Though I never knew that Kevin Siers, a political cartoonist for the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, was from Biwabik, the Duluth News Tribune‘s Mike Creger apparently did. He filed a fascinating feature on Siers and the Pulitzer Prize for cartooning he won Monday.

In his 20s, while doing work at a taconite plant, [Siers] approached a friend who owned the local paper about doing some cartoons.

“They weren’t very professional,” he said of those early works.

But it was a start, and soon he was doing cartoons for the daily paper at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He would save up money made at the plant and then attend classes. He ended up officially graduating in his early 30s.

He said he looked “like Jerry Garcia” back then and was able to find a picture Monday to prove it. It still had a fortune from a cookie at a Chinese restaurant attached to it.

“It said ‘Someday all of your hard work will pay off.’ I guess it did,” Siers said.

Siers said the Iron Range was a “fun place politically” because of the dichotomy found in a Democratic stronghold that was also socially conservative.

Perhaps after 15 years of my own cartoons this could be my ticket to Pulitzer Town?

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