Editing Charles M. Schulz (section)

==Early life and education==
[[File:Charles Schulz HS Yearbook.jpg|thumb|left|Schulz's high school yearbook photo, 1940]]
Charles Monroe Schulz was born in [[Minneapolis|Minneapolis, Minnesota]], on November 26, 1922,<ref name="NYTobit"/> and grew up in [[Saint Paul, Minnesota|Saint Paul]]. He was the only child of Carl Fred Schulz and Dena Halverson,<ref>{{Cite news |first=Jonathan |last=Franzen |title=The Comfort Zone: Growing up with Charlie Brown |date=2004-11-29 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/11/29/the-comfort-zone |magazine=The New Yorker}}</ref>  and was of [[German Americans|German]] and [[Norwegian Americans|Norwegian]] descent. His uncle called him "Sparky" after the horse Spark Plug in [[Billy DeBeck]]'s comic strip ''[[Barney Google and Snuffy Smith|Barney Google]]'', which Schulz enjoyed reading.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Complete Peanuts 1965–1966|author=Groth, Gary|publisher=Fantagraphic Books|chapter=Charles M. Schulz – 1922 to 2000|date=2007|isbn=978-1-56097-724-7|pages=322}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.toonopedia.com/google.htm|title=Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Barney Google|website=www.toonopedia.com}}</ref>

Schulz attended Richards Gordon Elementary School in Saint Paul, where he skipped two half-grades. He became a shy, timid teenager, perhaps as a result of being the youngest in his class at [[Saint Paul Central High School|Central High School]].

Schulz loved drawing and sometimes drew his family dog, Spike, who ate unusual things, such as pins and tacks. In 1937, Schulz drew a picture of Spike and sent it to ''[[Ripley's Believe It or Not!]]''; his drawing appeared in [[Robert Ripley]]'s syndicated panel, captioned, "A hunting dog that eats pins, tacks, and razor blades is owned by C. F. Schulz, St. Paul, Minn." and "Drawn by 'Sparky'".<ref>{{cite book |author=Mendelson, Lee |url=https://archive.org/details/charliebrownchar00mend_0 |title=Charlie Brown & Charlie Schulz |publisher=The World Publishing Company |year=1970 |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name="mich1">{{harvnb|Michaelis|2007|p=9}}</ref>

Another noteworthy episode in his high school life was the rejection of his drawings by his high school yearbook, which he referred to in ''Peanuts'' years later, when he had Lucy ask Charlie Brown to sign a picture he drew of a horse, only to then say it was a prank.<ref name="guardian.co.uk">{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/oct/11/peanuts-matt-groening-jonathan-franzen | work=The Guardian |place=London | title=Oh boy, Charlie Brown | date=October 11, 2008 | access-date=April 28, 2010}}</ref> A five-foot-tall statue of Snoopy was placed in the school's main office 60 years later.<ref>{{cite web|title=Peanuts on Parade|url=https://www.johnweeks.com/tour/peanuts/snoopy.html|publisher=John Weeks|access-date=November 20, 2017|archive-date=March 26, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326191137/https://www.johnweeks.com/tour/peanuts/snoopy.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>