An Ohio student recently won the Charles M. Schultz College Cartoonist Award, the most prestigious honor bestowed on college cartoonists, from the Scripps Howard Foundation.Ryan Pagelow, a senior magazine journalism major at Ohio University, publishes his cartoon, “Everyday Kid,” in college newspapers around the region, including Ohio State’s the Lantern.He submitted about 20 cartoon strips to the contest and the judges made their decision based on his work.Pagelow said that along with his cartoon submissions, he had to write a 200-word essay about his goals in cartooning . He said one of the ideas that was expressed in his essay was, “I try to seek out ordinary truth in everyday life and stay away from stereotypes.””My freshman year of high school, I started getting pretty serious into cartoons,” Pagelow said.He said his grandpa read cartoons to him when he was young and taught him that they were the most important section of the newspaper.Pagelow’s cartoon strip also is published in other college newspapers, including the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s The Daily Cardinal , the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire’s The Badger Herald and Ohio University’s The Post . He’s also had a weekly strip in the Wisconsin State JournalSince Athens, Ohio used to have the same area code as Columbus, so when Pagelow submitted his work to The Lantern, there was an assumption that he was a student at OSU.The confusion was cleared up, but the newspaper decided to still print Pagelow’s cartoon.Pagelow is from Madison, Wis., but decided to attend OU because of its journalism school and the town of Athens.”I liked the strangeness of Athens. I’ve loved Appalachia, not that Athens is hard core Appalachia, but I like this part of the country,” he said.Pagelow has self-published three cartoon books, the latest entitled, “Everything’s Fine.” The book encompasses all Pagelow’s cartoons from 1998 to 1999.Pagelow said he would like to be a syndicated cartoonist, but realizes this is a tough road.”I still have a long way to go to perfect my strip, but I will keep trying,” Pagelow said.