A Sad Watchcat Wednesday

Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of Spongebob Squarepants died on Monday after battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He was 57. 

Hillenburg graduated from Humboldt State University in 1984 with a degree that emphasized marine resources, and taught he marine biology at the Orange Country Marine Institute in Dana Point, now known as the Ocean Institute. 

While working there, he created colorful teaching tools that showed off his love of all things oceanic, writing and illustrating stories that birthed the future residents of Bikini Bottom. He soon found himself pursuing a degree in experimental animation at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, earning an MFA in 1992.

Hillenburg worked on Nickelodeon's "Rocko's Modern Life" as a writer and director before moving he pitched, produced and directed the animated series that would become "SpongeBob SquarePants." 

Hillenburg was honored at last year's 45th annual Annie Awards with the Windsor McCay award for his career contributions of the art of animation by long time friend and the voice of SpongeBob, Tom Keeny. 

Hillenburg helped opened doors to unknown animation artists and creators, showing that you didn't have to be a Wheeler Dealer type to make an animation series. You only needed a little oddball idea with a lot of heart and humor to make something bigger for everyone to enjoy. 

Stephen Hillenburg was someone we never met up close, but on that night, we saw him receive his award and we stood to honored him as an audience.