Dwane Powell, political cartoonist for a generation of NC newspaper readers, has died

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Retired News & Observer editorial cartoonist Dwane Powell, whose drawings summarized and satirized decades of North Carolina political debates and decisions with humanity and humor, died Sunday night.

Powell, 74, kept track of current events after he stopped working full time in 2009 and was still skewering elected officials in weekly N&O cartoons until a few weeks before his death.

He had been fighting a rare form of cancer.

Powell was an Arkansas native who grew up on a farm outside the town of McGehee. He went to school at Arkansas Agricultural and Mechanical College — now the University of Arkansas at Monticello — where he played football until a shoulder injury took him off the field.

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