Dennis Draughon
Dennis Draughon was born in October 1961 and spent the first 29 years of his life in Virginia and North Carolina before moving to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to spend the next fifteen years of his life drawing cartoons for a living. In 2005, Dennis moved back below the Mason-Dixon. Dennis now lives and freelances in the Triangle area of North Carolina. His work appears every week in The Durham News, The Fayetteville Observer, The Insider and other papers subscribing to the Capitol Press Association. In 1979, in a scene reminiscent of a driver's education film, Dennis' car stalled on the railroad tracks in the path of an oncoming train. Coming to consciousness half an hour later with his car ripped open like a can of tuna and the locomotive engine occupying his passenger seat, Dennis reached up, patted the throbbing steel and said, "Nice train, don't finish me off now." Suffering only a minor cut, he went back to high school the next day. Dennis attended North Carolina State University after failing the physical exam for entrance to the Air Force Academy as one of Sen. Jesse Helms' appointees. At NC State, he studied aerospace engineering, visual design and history while serving for eight years as the editorial cartoonist for the student newspaper, The Technician. After a brief sojourn making rope hammocks at Twin Oaks commune in northern Virginia, Dennis was hired as the last editorial cartoonist for the now-defunct Raleigh Times. Near the end of his tenure there, Dennis put together his first book, "The Line is Draughon," published by Barefoot Press of Raleigh. From 1989 to 2004, Dennis was the staff editorial cartoonist for The Times-Tribune newspapers in Scranton. His work there earned a Fischetti Award for Distinguished Achievement in 1993 and the Association of America Editorial Cartoonists' 1999 "Golden Spike" award for the best cartoon killed by an editor. Dennis is most likely the model for the satirical portrayal of the Scranton Times cartoonist who appears in the third season episode of the NBC sitcom "The Office," entitled "The Convention." In his spare time, Dennis reads copiously and enjoys spending time with his wife, Megan, daughter, Frances, and son, Charlie.
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