Finalist: Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press

Born January 20, 1958 in Clinton, South Carolina. The son of a career army officer, Clay Bennett led a nomadic life, attending ten different schools before graduating in 1976 from S.R. Butler High School in Huntsville, Alabama.

Served as editorial cartoonist for his college newspaper and managing editor of the alternative student paper while attending the University of North Alabama, where he graduated in 1980 with degrees in art and history.

After working briefly as a staff artist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Fayetteville (NC) Times, Bennett went on to serve as the editorial cartoonist for the St. Petersburg Times (1981-1994), and The Christian Science Monitor (1997-2007) before joining the staff of the Chattanooga Times Free Press in late 2007.

Recipient of The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 2002, Bennett has earned almost every honor his profession has to offer including:

• The National Headliner Award (1999, 2000, 2004, 2016, 2023)
• Overseas Press Club Award (2005, 2007, 2017)
• Sigma Delta Chi Award (2001, 2017, 2019)
• National Cartoonists Society Award for Editorial Cartoons (2002, 2017)
• John Fischetti Award (2001, 2005)
• Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award (2007)
• The Scripps Howard Foundation’s National Journalism Award (2002)
• United Nations/Ranan Lurie Award for Political Cartooning (2011)
• Grambs Aronson Award for Cartooning with a Conscience (2013)
• The National Press Foundation’s Berryman Award (2014)

Past President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, Bennett is the husband of artist Cindy Procious and the father of Matt, Ben and Sarah. His work is distributed internationally by Counterpoint Media.