American humorists

Gordon Baxter (December 25, 1923 – June 11, 2005), nicknamed Bax, was a well-known Texas radio personality, an author of books and a columnist for newspapers and magazines. He was a lifelong resident of Southeast Texas, having grown up in Port Arthur where he was born.
He lived near Beaumont during most of his professional years and was probably best known locally as a radio heartland humorist in the Jean Shepherd tradition. He was also known nationally to several generations of pilots who read his columns on the joys of flying in the aviation magazine, Flying.
Baxter was entranced by aviation from childhood. At the age of ten, he paid "a 1933 fortune" of five dollars for his first airplane ride in a Curtiss Condor and was hooked on flying. Despite a slow start in the cockpit and as a writer, by the end of his writing career he had spent more than 25 years with Flying, written 13 books and contributed to a Microsoft CD-ROM title, World of Flight.
During World War II, Baxter joined the Army Air Corps, hoping to be a pilot. Baxter himself noted that his ruination as a military pilot was predicted in high school by a math teacher who told Gordon that he spent too much time dreaming and drawing airplanes and not enough time studying. In the Army Air Corps, he trained in a Stearman. He entered the Merchant Marine as an officer, but after his ship was sunk in the South Pacific, he became a turret gunner in B-17s. Once there, he became a sharpshooter in every turret position. It was only after World War II that he succeeded in soloing in a Luscombe, eventually becoming an active pilot in the late 1950s.

Asa Elmer "Ace" Reid, Jr., (March 10, 1925 – November 10, 1991) was the American creator of the cartoon Cowpokes and a Western humorist. Cowpokes, at one time, ran in over 400 weekly newspapers across the United States. He produced many popular cartoon books and calendars during his lifetime.
He was born on March 10, 1925, at Lelia Lake, Texas (near Amarillo). He was the son of Asa E. Reid, Sr., and Callie Miles Bishop. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Electra, Texas, where he grew up ranching and cowboying.
During World War II, he served as a machinist's mate in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific aboard the USS Lanier . Cowpokes was born on board the Lanier; "The Sorry Salt" was a cartoon he drew for the ship's newspaper. After the war, "The Sorry Salt" became "Jake", his primary character.
On September 11, 1949, in Dallas, he married Madge Parmley, daughter of the doctor in Electra, T. H. Parmley. They moved to Kerrville, Texas, in 1952. Ace’s first cartoon appeared in West Texas Livestock Weekly that same year. Two years later, their son and only child, Stan, was born.
Reid appeared in the early gatherings of the American Cowboy Culture Association, which holds the annual National Cowboy Symposium and Celebration each September in Lubbock, Texas.Ace and Madge were living in Kerrville at the time of his death on November 10, 1991. Madge still lives in Kerrville and has kept Cowpokes going since Ace's death.

Maximilian Shulman (March 14, 1919 – August 28, 1988) was an American writer and humorist best known for his television and short story character Dobie Gillis, as well as for best-selling novels.