Cheerleader and Cocktail Waitress Ann Telnaes Interviewed-Profiled
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Editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes spent some of her teen years and young adulthood in Reno Nevada…
Fearless — that’s how the Pulitzer Prize committee described political cartoonist Ann Telnaes’ work when she won the coveted award this year.
On Telnaes’ journey to becoming an influential commenter on world events, she made two crucial stops in Reno. The first culminated with her graduation from Reno High School in 1979.
Telnaes said she still keeps in touch with high school friends, including political consultant Randi Thompson, who described Telnaes as quiet when she first arrived at Reno High.
“But we really noticed her when she was selected as a cheerleader,” Thompson said. “Her personality just came out and she became a friend to everyone and was very popular.”
After graduating from Reno High, Telnaes attended Arizona State University for a couple of years and then went to the California Institute of the Arts near Los Angeles.
In between Arizona and California, though, she returned to Northern Nevada to work at the Eldorado casino.
“I worked as a waitress to make money for art school,” Telnaes said. “I had just turned 21 so I was probably the youngest cocktail waitress there.”
Ann Telnaes talked to Mark Robison of the Reno Gazette Journal (or here) about her late 1970s – early1980s Reno sojourn and her early and current current career as a political cartoonist.
Being a cocktail waitress also planted the seeds for themes that would inform her future political commentary.
“It taught me a lot about human nature,” she said. “It also kind of started to shape my whole opinion about women’s rights and how we’re treated in society. My first editorial cartoons, which I sent out to newspapers to see if they’d buy them, were about sexism and sexual harassment after I had watched the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings.”
Ann discusses the current state of affairs in political cartooning including newspapers no longer printing editorial cartoons, from the big New York Times to the smaller Latrobe Bulletin.
In 2001 when Telnaes won her first Pulitzer — journalism’s top prize — it was for “editorial cartooning.”
This made clear the cartoons were opinion.
In May when she won her second, it was for “illustrated reporting and commentary.”
“I think my profession is a little bit uncomfortable with that category they’ve created,” she said. “I think they should have two, one for illustrated reporting and one for commentary. I think the Pulitzer needs to define that more.”
She plans to talk to the Pulitzer people directly.
Ann Telnaes current illustrated commentary can be seen at her Open Windows Substack.
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