Obituary of Wesley Quinn Booher

Wesley Quinn Booher, Jr., an accomplished illustrator recently retired as art director of The Blade and a former vice president of the Toledo Newspaper Guild, died July 11 in his home in Dundee, Mich. He was 60. He had cancer and died from complications of its progression, his wife, Libby, said. His last day at work was April 16. He had made art his livelihood for more than 35 years, mostly at newspapers. He was hired by The Blade in March, 2000, as an artist - illustrating news and feature articles and devising charts and graphs and maps to go with them. He was promoted to art director at the Blade in August, 2002. Readers found whimsy in Mr. Booher's caricatures of Toledo notables, past and present, who populated the annual holiday-season "Find Cutie" feature, named for The Blade's "little dog with a big heart" that raises money for canines in need of extraordinary veterinary care. He long had offered counsel to Guild leaders. He got formally involved in recent years, on the local's executive board and then as vice president. A native of west Michigan, Mr. Booher was a graduate of Fremont High School there and drew from early childhood. He attended what was then Grand Valley State College in Allendale, Mich. He had a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan. A scholarship in mathematics took him there. Graphic design became his major. After work as a production artist for companies in Ann Arbor and Oshkosh, Wis., Mr. Booher became an editorial artist for the Post-Crescent in Appleton, Wis. He was editorial artist and assistant art director at European Stars and Stripes in Germany and was commended by the Defense Department for his work during the Persian Gulf War. Stints as graphics editor at the Times Herald in Port Huron, Mich., and at the Oakland Press in Pontiac, Michigan For several years, Mr. Booher taught youth cartooning classes at the Toledo Museum of Art. He'd made a study of how the art form developed - his heroes included Saul Steinberg, best known for his New Yorker illustrations, and George Herriman of Krazy Kat comic strip fame - and he taught the children how cartoons developed from such early newspaper comics as the Yellow Kid. To guide the students, he'd turned a large sketch pad into a step-by-step guide to drawing. Cartoons started with shapes, he would show them, "and you add the details later," his daughter, Jessica, said. "Each page was the next step. By the time you get to the last page, it's the final product. Survivors include his wife, Mary E. "Libby" Glover-Booher, whom he married in October, 1983; daughter, Jessica; father, Wesley Q., Sr., and brother, Leon. There will be a private memorial, his wife said. Funeral arrangements were entrusted to the Cover Funeral Home, 297 Tecumseh Street in Dundee. The family suggests tributes to children's art education at the Toledo Museum of Art, in care of Maureen Anderson, or Hospice of Northwest Ohio.