Lee’s artistic interests developed early in life, when at the age of 13 he created an award-winning design to be used as an emblem by civilian pilots on a peaceful wartime junket to Mexico. His prize was to be a free trip to Mexico in one of the planes, but his parents decided he was too young to make the trip. Nevertheless, the award helped solidify his lifelong interest in aviation, art, AND Mexico.

As a college student. he designed and published two booklets of sports cartoons, one on the Lubbock High School football team, and the other on the Texas Tech Red Raider football team. He continued his interest in sports for a time after graduation, drawing several dozen cartoons for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, his first two newspaper jobs. On one assignment in Justin, Texas, he drew a sketch of a bank robber from a witness’s description. The robber was caught two weeks later, and the incident was dramatized for television in 1956 for Pall Mall’s Big Story Award, in which Lee played himself.

He also tinkered with oil painting, but didn’t try any serious painting until 1964, when he moved to San Antonio. He became friendly with a number of San Antonio artists during this period, and sold several paintings over the next couple of years, as well as holding one-man shows and exhibiting annually in the San Antonio starving artists’ show.

In 1966, worried that he was spreading himself thin with too many creative interests.—art, creative writing, and photography—he decided to choose one field and apply himself to it.

So he chose writing as his preferred profession. Art and photography took a back seat at this point, and became only favored hobbies.

Now that he is retired, Lee and his wife, Shirley Miller Lee, have built an artists’ studio behind their Texas ranch house where they both continue to paint for pleasure.