Freethought in the Media "Tell It Like It Is Award

2006 - Mike Keefe

A son of Santa Rosa, Calif., and a product of the St. Louis public school system, Mike Keefe, editorial cartoonist for the Denver Post, now lives in Evergreen, Colo., at 8,000 feet above sea level. He is married with two children. After a stretch in the Marine Corps, and while working on a doctorate in mathematics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Mike began drawing editorial cartoons for the campus newspaper. The Vietnam War was winding down and Watergate was heating up. With material this rich, Keefe was fooled into believing that cartooning would always be easy.

Mike has served as president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and is a former John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University. Among other honors, he's won the National Headliner's Award, The Best of the West Journalism contest, and the Fischetti Cartoon Competition.

"At the Freedom From Religion Foundation, we've long been aware that freethought's best friend at most news dailies is the editorial cartoonist, who is not afraid to puncture hypocrisy, point out irrationalism or to let the Powers That Be have it! And best of all, to make us laugh while they pillory orthodoxy. We are very pleased to give Mike Keefe FFRF's Freethought in the Media: 'Tell It Like It Is' Award,' " said Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.

On the internet his cartoons can be seen at www.InToon.com.

Recipients of Special Recognition Awards include: