18 February 1995) was cartoonist for the Canadian comic strip feature Rural Route, which became a familiar fixture in the Star Weekly between 1956 until the publication's demise in 1968. He was born in Essa, Ontario. Ball, who grew up on a farm near Cookstown, Ontario, originally looked at electrical engineering as a career, but it was his application to the Toronto Daily Star, with only a few sample correspondence school art lessons under his belt, that got him hired as a graphic artist in 1932.