Chattanooga Times Free Press cartoonist Clay Bennett has been named this year's winner of the Silver Reuben Award for editorial cartooning from the National Cartoonists Society.
Named in honor of the organization's first president Rube Goldberg, the Reuben Awards recognize outstanding achievement in all walks of the profession.
Referred to as the "Oscars of Cartooning," this year's Reuben Awards would best be compared to the 2017 Oscar ceremony that mistakenly named "La La Land" to be the winner for best picture. Due to an error in tabulating the votes, two of the Reubens handed out at the NCS convention went to the wrong cartoonists. The prize for editorial cartooning was one of them.
"Since it was already announced that I lost, it would be an understatement to say that this honor was unexpected," Bennett joked. "That said, receiving the recognition of my fellow cartoonists really means the world to me."
This is the second Reuben Award for Bennett. This year, Bennett also has been honored with the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award, the Overseas Press Club's Thomas Nast Award and the Green Eyeshade Award from the Southeastern chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Over his career, Bennett also has received the Pulitzer Prize, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the National Headliner Award, and he has been named Editorial Cartoonist of the Year by Editor & Publisher magazine.
His work is syndicated internationally in about 100 newspapers through the Washington Post Writers Group.
Bennett's winning Reuben Award entry included these cartoons: