Mike Keefe was the Keynote Speaker at the UMKC Commencement on Friday, May 4, 2012.
Mike was born in Northern California in 1946, but grew up in St. Louis. He began college as a journalism major at the University of Missouri in Columbia, but dropped out after a year and half. He took some time to hitchhike around the country then moved to Kansas City, working variously as a bartender and assembly line worker at the GM plant in Leeds.
Mike was drafted into the Marine Corps in 1969 where he learned to spit-shine boots and play blues harp on guard duty at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. When he received orders to Vietnam as a rifleman, good test scores saved his skin, instead landing him a much safer job analyzing combat readiness statistics at Camp Pendleton, California. While in the Marines, Mike took a correspondence course in physics, heightening his interest in science and mathematics. He also became politically passionate and radically anti-war after news of the Kent State massacre circulated through the barracks
After his discharge, Mike took advantage of the G.I. Bill and enrolled as a math major at UMKC, graduating with a B.S. in 1973. He continued his studies as a graduate teaching assistant and earned an M.S. in 1974. Mike immediately began doctoral studies in point-set topology.
While at UMKC, Mike found an outlet for his political interests at the U-News. He drew his first editorial cartoon for the campus newspaper, lampooning the policies of the Nixon administration. And he was hooked.
In 1975, Mike abandoned mathematics for journalism when he was offered the job as editorial cartoonist for The Denver Post. He stayed on that job for the next three and a half decades with a one-year break for a fellowship at Stanford University, 1988-89. Although he officially retired on December 1, 2011, he still draws a weekly cartoon for syndication.
On Monday, April 18, 2011, Mike learned he had won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning with judges citing the wide range of his topics and his use of a "loose, expressive style to send strong, witty messages." William Dean Singleton, chairman and publisher of The Denver Post called the recognition "long overdue." Singleton added: "Mike's been here almost 36 years, and he's put out award-winning work almost since the day he got here. He's won every other major award in his field, so it's appropriate that he finally win the big one." Mike is the third Denver Post editorial cartoonist to win the honor, after Paul Conrad in 1964 and Pat Oliphant in 1967. "The two who preceded him were legends," Singleton said. "I think Mike is now a legend too."
Mike occasionally finds ways to incorporate mathematics into his cartoons. A November, 2010 cartoon, one that was in his Pulitzer Prize-winning portfolio, targeting Don't Ask, Don't Tell, a ban on openly-gay military service that has since been repealed, did just that. The cartoon depicts two visitors at the Iwo Jima memorial with a caption reading, "Statistically speaking, there's an even chance one of those heroes was gay." Mike's math proof was submitted to the Pulitzer committee as part of his entry.
Besides the Pulitzer, Mike has been honored by the Columbia College Fischetti editorial cartoon competition, the National Headliners Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Press Association, the Overseas Press Club, the Anti-Defamation League, the ACLU and numerous local civic organizations. His cartoons have appeared in Time, Newsweek, Business Week, US News and World Report, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post and in over 800 newspapers across the United States, Europe and Asia. He was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University and is past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.
Mike co-authored two nationally syndicated comic strips in the mid-1980s, authored three books and produced a variety of animation projects. He plays guitar and harmonica for the oldies band, Falling Rock. He has two grown children and lives in downtown Denver with his wife, Anita Austin (formerly, Scott) (also B.S. Mathematics, and M.S. Mathematics, UMKC.)
Mike Keefe