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September 15, 2002
William Campbell Jr., 1943-2002
William H. "Bill" Campbell Jr., whose editorial cartooning career was abruptly cut short when he was paralyzed in a 1979 car wreck, died at his home in Seaton, IL, on July 12, 2002.
From 1976 to 1979, he was the staff cartoonist for the Quad-City Times in Davenport, IA. Though he stopped cartooning after the accident, Campbell remained an AAEC member for the rest of his life.
As reported in the Quad City Times, Bill Campbell was born May 16, 1943, in Monmouth. He attended Western Illinois University, Carl Sandburg College and Knox College before joining the U.S. Army. From 1964 to 1967, he served with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.
In the late ’60s, Bill returned home to rural Monmouth to help out on the family farm. A few years later he left farming to pursue a career in journalism, working for the Register-Mail as a police reporter from 1972 until the mid-1970s.
In addition to drawing for the Quad-City Times, in 1976, he founded Campbell Cartoon Service with his wife, the only state syndicated cartoon service in the nation at the time, publishing his cartoons in papers across Illinois, including the Chicago Sun-Times.
After the accident in 1979 that left him paralyzed, he wrote a column for several local papers throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Campbell published three books, one of his cartoons and two of his columns, and was the first recipient of the Outstanding Alumni Award at Carl Sandburg College.
Surviving are his wife, Betty; two daughters, two grandchildren, and his mother.