![\"War](\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7248\/8163965284_c20cd782f7.jpg\")
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Fictional folk hero Paul Bunyan had his big blue ox, Babe. A very real Auburn engineer and artist, James Dean Thomas<\/strong><\/a> (who later dropped Thomas from his name), electrical engineering \u201882 and a native of Fort Payne, Ala., has his little blue cat, Pete. Since 1999, Dean, a former engineer at Georgia Power turned artist, has been painting Pete the Cat \u2014 a small blue cat who was inspired by his own cat Pete \u2014 among watercolors of rural landscapes, classic cars and even vintage Auburn scenes.<\/p>\n While Dean\u2019s cat was black, he decided to paint Pete blue, believing that black cats might be bad luck. Pete the Cat has been featured in Dean\u2019s familiar paintings of Samford Hall, Sani-Freeze and Aubie, as well as vintage\u2014style country landscapes throughout the South. His original artwork hangs in downtown shops on College Street. In 2008, Dean and writer Eric Litwin created a Pete the Cat children\u2019s book series, which has spent time on the New York Times Best Seller List for children\u2019s books, including the latest release, \u201cPete Saves Christmas.\u201d The next chapter in the Pete the Cat series will be released early next year.<\/p>\n Fictional folk hero Paul Bunyan had his big blue ox, Babe. A very real Auburn engineer and artist, James Dean Thomas (who later dropped Thomas from his name), electrical engineering \u201882 and a native of Fort Payne, Ala., has his little blue cat, Pete. Since 1999, Dean, a former engineer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[95,33,92,98,94,93,97,96],"yoast_head":"\n <\/div> ![\"Flickr\"](\"http:\/\/eng.auburn.edu\/images\/flickr.png\")
<\/a> view Auburn Engineering<\/a> on flickr ![\"Auburn](\"http:\/\/eng.auburn.edu\/images\/flicker-icon.png\"){kind=icon}
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