With the kids away at college, parents appreciate calls — about anything.

What Jack and Pam Beeler of Bexley heard was astonishing.

Their son, Nate, phoned to say he had won the Scripps Howard Charles M. Schulz award for college cartooning and the John Locher Memorial Award for outstanding editorial cartooning.

Beeler, a 1998 graduate of Bexley High School, has become only the second person to win both national awards in the same year.

"I was totally wowed," Mrs. Beeler said. "When your kid is away at college, you don’t know what he is doing or accomplishing. I’m blown away he’s the top cartoonist in the nation."

The senior at American University in Washington compiled his drawings and entered the contests without prodding from his parents.

During the school year, though, he did call home to run ideas past them.

"It’s clearly his art, but he has shared it with us," Mrs. Beeler said. "The creative process has been fun and has brought us even closer together."

The student cartoonist, contrary to what many people might imagine, doesn’t strive to draw attention to himself.

In fact, he jokes about the notion.

"I’m not a funny guy," he said. "Most cartoonists are soft-spoken, nice people — guys you’d want to hang around with and have a burger with."

As a cartoonist and a major in print journalism, Beeler fights other assumptions, too.

"There’s this stigma of artists as sloppy, unintelligent space cadets," he said. "Then there’s the journalist who propagates mistruths, makes families suffer and tries to keep violence the headline news."

Beeler just enjoys being part of the crowd.

Cartooning came naturally: His mother noticed his artistic ability at age 5.

"He drew his birthday invitations," she said. "The level of detail, even in preschool, was different from other children his age."

He was enrolled in as many artistic activities as he could handle.

"I wanted to be a Cub Scout — they tied the coolest knots — but my mom said no," Beeler said. "She signed me up for mimery, puppetry and other things to expand my horizons. She’s created a monster now: a cartoonist."

He first realized his talent in third grade.

"Other kids would want to see what I was doing in art class and try to gauge what they were doing off me," he said. "It was strange because nobody wants to exactly be a gauge."

In fifth grade, an editorial cartoon he drew about Operation Desert Storm was hung while the class studied the Persian Gulf.

He designed his first comic book, Spartica, in middle school.

"Doodling in high school," Beeler said, "was like a screen saver for me — an unconscious reaction to being bored out of my mind in lectures."

The adviser for the student newspaper noticed his work while he sat doodling — and told him to see her if he wanted to draw for The Torch.

"See me next year and tell me you’re that cartoon guy," she said.

The next year, "that cartoon guy" started drawing graphics for the newspaper, then contributing comics.

These days, while attending American, Beeler designs pages — and writes and edits — for the student newspaper, The Eagle.

He has redesigned the Web site and built a publishing system for the staff, all while drawing two comic strips a week and completing editorial cartoons.

"I feel you need to do something meaningful, something selfless —whether it's through art, service, government," he said. "Journalism is a service to society — especially cartoons."

Many more people look at the editorial cartoon, he figures, than read the editorial-page columns.

"It shows how effective they are in papers. It makes people think and gives them a foil to judge their own values."

To come up with ideas, Beeler bookmarks newspaper sites on his Internet browser and reads at least three a day.

By taking risks and not settling for the easiest subjects, his mother said, he pushes himself beyond his comfort zone.

"I like to ruffle some feathers sometimes," he said with a smile.

The Locher judges considered the timeliness of entries important: His cartoons included messages about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, anthrax and the Roman Catholic Church scandals.

"Some cartoons fail to be timely, but Nate did it beautifully," said Dick Locher, who helped judge the contest, named in memory of his son.

An artist reveals his personality through his cartoons, said Locher, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune and the designer of the Dick Tracy strip.

"We want someone bright, energetic, and you can see that in the messages," he said. "And ol’ Nate’s got it."

"You’ve got to be grabbed by the graphics. A lot of cartoons tend to look alike. He’s got a style that makes you sit up straight and say, ‘Hey that draws me in.' "

His work, Locher said, also is easily understood.

"I didn’t have to labor over it and put on the detective hat and figure out what the heck he was trying to say."

The award was bestowed June 23 at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists conference in Washington.

After graduating this year, Beeler hopes to pursue a career in editorial cartooning at a big newspaper.

His chances are good, said Dispatch Cartoonist Jim Larrick, who acted as a mentor to Beeler during his high-school years.

"He’s starting at a point where a lot of people finish," Larrick said. "As he gets seasoned, he’ll only get better."

Major U.S. newspapers employ only about 70 full-time cartoonists.

"It’s easier to get a job as a professional football player," Larrick said.

Despite the tough competition, Locher said, 10 of the 14 previous award winners have such jobs.

"I’m willing to move anywhere and be paid any amount of money that I can live on sufficiently if I can draw cartoons," Beeler said. "I want to establish that community connection every community needs."