Dispatch cartoonist draws top honor

Columbus Dispatch cartoonist Nate Beeler has been honored with a prestigious national award for his editorial cartoons in 2016. The Sigma Delta Chi Award recognizes exceptional journalism from around the world; Beeler was among 85 honorees chosen from more than 1,300 submissions.

This is not the first time that Beeler, 36, a Bexley native, was recognized for his cartooning by the Society of Professional Journalists. He won first place in the SPJ Mark Beeler of Excellence Awards, the collegiate version of the Sigma Delta Chi Award, while a student at American University.

Now he comes full circle, capturing this top prize at a professional level in a highly competitive industry where the typical cartoonist has been drawing for decades. Beeler, 36, knows of only two other cartoonists younger than 40 on staff at other newspapers.

His love of art and journalism started early. “I just wanted to be in newspapers,” he said. “Journalism is all about condensing perspective down to its true essence. And telling the story in a cartoon, you can do that really quickly — and a lot of times, without any words.”

Beeler joined The Dispatch in 2012, after drawing cartoons for seven years in the nation’s capital for The Washington Examiner. His cartoons also have appeared in such publications as USA Today, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report. Beeler is one of the most widely syndicated cartoonists, with his work distributed internationally to more than 800 publications by Cagle Cartoons.

He has received multiple top honors, including the 2008 Clifford K. & James T. Berryman Award from the National Press Foundation, the Overseas Press Club’s Thomas Nast Award in 2009 and the Fischetti Award from Columbia College Chicago in 2014.

Beeler and wife Eve are raising Max, 9, Ruby, 3 and Vera, 1, in Bexley, near grandparents Jack Beeler and Pam Beeler.