Dan Youra

ABOUT ME

Dan Youra

Dan Youra lives in Port Hadlock on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Dan moved to Washington in 1971 to take a job in state government with the Council on Higher Education and the Washington State Library, where he designed the LIFE Project (Library Information Facility on the Environment) for EXPO 74 in Spokane.

Dan's professional love is drawing editorial cartoons, his avocation that started at St. Lawrence Seminary, illustrating the class yearbook and school play bills, such as inking FDR for How You Like It. In the 1965 Dupage at Maryknoll College he cast Charlie Brown as a cub reporter interviewing Lyndon B. Johnson. Youra’s cartoons appeared in The Advance-Titan newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, where he earned a BA degree in International Studies in 1967.

To make money Youra publishes travel guides and maps.

In 1982 Youra designed a local Hood Canal map to commemorate the reopening of Hood Canal Bridge, after it sank in 1979. The map, published annually since then, continues to be distributed to visitors.

Youra grew up in a family that supported his cartooning and artists talents. He reflects that, “As a little boy, I remember my dad drawing funny cartoon characters for the amusement of us kids.” He had one aunt who was an art teacher and one who was an artist. Both encouraged his artistic explorations.

“I can remember drawing cowboys, Indians, and armies in second grade at St. Mary’s grade school, where Sister Theodocia, asked me to help other students with their art,” Youra recounts. “That was prior to political correctness, when you could still draw guns in school.”

In 1983 he created his first map with all the counties of the Olympic Peninsula. In 1984 he was hired as executive directory of the Olympic Peninsula Travel Association (OPTA), an organization started in 1932. In 1984 he published his first Olympic Peninsula Guide. In 1986 Youra was selected by the Washington State EXPO 86 Commission to publish the Official Guidebook for the Washington State Pavilion at EXPO 86. Youra launched his Ferry Travel Guide in 1988. In 1991 he was elected first president of the Port Ludlow Chamber of Commerce.

In Jefferson County Dan worked for the Community Action Council to help find jobs for residents. He set up Jefferson County’s first office for the Washington State Department of Employment Security. The office in the First National Bank building on Tyler Street served residents with unemployment claims and job searches. As staff planner to the Jefferson County Economic Development Council, Youra wrote the 1975 Jefferson County Economic Development Plan.

While publishing guides by day, Youra continued to develop his cartoon characters by night. He has a whole family and zoo full of his creations. His “U” family is made up of Ulysses, Ureka, Uclid and Urana. His animal friends include Otto, Loony, Gooey and a whole bunch more. Youra’s “U” cartoons are online on the web at www.utoons.com.

Youra has drawn all the presidents since LBJ. Hundreds of Bush cartoons are moving into the archives, while Obama cartoons are now taking center stage. Youra’s technique has evolved from the black and white pen drawings of the 60s to color animations in the 21st century.

Youra’s latest exploration is sending his cartoons to cell phones on the mobile web at www.utoons.mobi.

Dan’s office in Olympia was on the campus of the newly opened Evergreen State College. Friends at the student paper, known then as The Paper (now Cooper Point Journal) discovered Youra’s talent for cartoons and published them. In subsequent years The Paper's cartoonist was Matt Groening of Simpson fame.

In 1971 Youra studied a course in cartooning at the University of Washington with Ray Colins, cartoonist for the Seattle Post Intelligencer. At that time David Horsey was cartoonist for The Daily, the university newspaper, before he went on the Seattle Post Intelligencer and the LA Times.

Youra was born in Wisconsin and received his high school diploma from St. Lawrence Seminary in Mt. Calvary.

As a Fulbright scholar, Youra studied in Argentina for one year in 1968, before entering graduate school at Ohio State University. There he studied quantitative analysis and computer research in the Behavioral Sciences Laboratory for three years. He attended summer school in 1969 at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research and he worked as managing editor of Current Thought on Peace and War, an international digest, published at the United Nations in New York.

Dan's email address is dan@youra.com