Joe Linus Barton was born on September 15, 1949, in Waco Texas to Bess Wynell and Larry Linus Barton. He was a Republican U.S. Congressman for Texas's 6th district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1985-2019 and was the Chair of the House Energy Committee from 2004-2007.
Gregory Benford was born January 30, 1941, in Mobile, AL. He earned college degrees through the Ph.D. in physics from 1960-1967. Benford is a practicing scientist, a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine. Benford has been honored with the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship; Nebula Award, John W. Campbell Award, the Ditmar Award, and several others.
A Minnesota born and Wisconsin raised man, Matthew Bey currently lives in Austin, TX where he is an editor for the print zine Space Squid as well as writes and edits other blogs, podcasts, and personal works.
Binder, Otto O. (Otto Oscar), 1911-1975
Otto Oscar Binder began writing science fiction with his brother Earl under the pen name Eando Binder and was first published in 1932. He kept the name Eando after Earl retired from writing in 1936. By 1935 they had produced 450,000 words, and by 1938, according to science fiction authority Sam Moskowitz, "Eando Binder had become one of the three most popular writers in the field." His popularity reached its height with his introduction of Adam Link, a very different robot conceptualization. Binder had a talent for plotting and was credited with being one of the more imaginative writers of the period. He largely left the science fiction field in the 1940s to write continuities for the Captain Marvel comic book series, which he did for 17 years. He made a brief and largely unsuccessful attempt to return to science fiction writing in the early 1950s. His last science fiction appearance was Mankind: Child of the Stars, with Max Hugh Flindt. Binder also wrote more than 300 nonfiction articles and wrote extensively on unidentified flying objects.
Otto Binder also wrote under the names John Coleridge, Dean D. O'Brien, Gordon A. Giles, Ione (or Ian) Frances Turek, and may have written under the house name Will Garth. He was an editor of two space magazines, Space World, and Jets and Rockets.
There are several sources available about Otto Binder, including:
Kristina A. Bishoff is a Utah-based composer who has written a number of classical pieces and works. A recipient of Utah Valley University's Film Scoring Internship, Bishoff has written music for Salt Lake Pops, the Pretty Darn Funny web series, commercials for businesses, and alternative pop artists including Robyn Cage (under the remixing name of Kristin Royal.) As well as her 2018 "Green Rider" soundtrack, she has also written music for 'Kaladin', a book soundtrack inspired by Brandon Sanderson's novel "The Way of Kings".
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded in October 1966, in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The name was shortened to the Black Panther Party (BPP) and it began spreading eastward through the Black urban ghetto colonies across the country. Social Protest during the 1960s produced turmoil and social fragmentation. The Black Panthers vs. the non-violent Civil Rights Movement of Martin Luther King, Jr. was evidence that this social fragmentation had caused a divide in the Black community.
The Black Panthers Party (BPP) was the total opposite of the Civil Rights Movement as led by Dr. King. The BPP preached self-determination through separation and segregation from whites while the CRM preached integration. The BPP wanted the total overthrow of the capitalist system while the CRM wanted to not only keep the system but wanted to be a part of the system as elected officials. Later in the 1970s the BPP saw the value in politics and electing those sympathetic to its causes. The BPP believed strongly in self-defense, armed confrontation if necessary, and the need to have weapons to fight oppression. The Civil Rights Movement of Dr. King was totally opposed to these tactics.
The non-violent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. was in direct conflict with many of the younger leaders by 1964 including SNCC leader Stokley Carmichael. The founder of the "Black Power" Movement, Stokley preached Black separation rather than integration, the cornerstone of King's movement. Carmichael's philosophy drew heavily from the rhetoric of Malcolm X's violent confrontation and Frantz Fanon's Marxist writings. Carmichael appealed to their need for fast social and class changes. He saw this change only occurring through Black pride in themselves and Blacks working with other Blacks, whether in the U.S. or in Africa.
Bleiler, E. F. (Everett Franklin), 1920-2010
Everett Franklin Bleiler was born in Boston, Massachusetts on April 30, 1920. He graduated from Harvard University with an A.B. in anthropology in 1942 and received an M.A. in the History of Culture from the University of Chicago in 1950. In addition, Bleiler was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands in 1951-1952.
He served in the United States Army from 1942-1946, doing mostly clerical work in military intelligence, and he also attended the Japanese Language School in Ann Arbor, MI. He attained the rank of Sergeant.
After leaving the military, Bleiler embarked on what would become a long and productive career as an editor, bibliographer, and scholar in the fields of science fiction and fantasy literature and of detective fiction. He did editorial work for Shasta Publishers in Chicago from 1947-1950 while attending the University of Chicago, such work including manuscript selection and rewriting. He worked as a freelance writer from 1952-1955 and was then hired in 1955 by Dover Publications, a noted New York City publishing company known mainly for publishing reissued works.
This event marked the start of a career of more than 20 years with Dover, during which Bleiler worked as advertising manager from 1955-1960; managing director from 1960-1965; and finally, executive vice-president from 1965-1978. After leaving Dover, Bleiler served as an editorial consultant for Charles Scribners Sons from 1978-1987.
In the course of his career, Bleiler was responsible for a large and significant number of works. He cooperated with T.E. Dikty on editing the anthology series The Best Science Fiction Stories between 1949-1954, which was the first published anthology to present the best science fiction stories for a given year. The two also edited Year's Best Science Fiction Novels between 1952-1954. Between 1952-1981, Bleiler edited a number of other detective and supernatural fiction anthologies, including Three Gothic Novels (1966), Five Victorian Ghost Novels (1971), Eight Dime Novels (1974), Three Supernatural Novels of the Victorian Period (1975), Three Victorian Detective Novels(1978), A Treasury of Victorian Detective Stories (1979), and A Treasury of Victorian Ghost Stories (1981). He also edited many anthologies of works between 1960-1980 by individual authors, including H.G. Wells, Ambrose Bierce, E.T.A. Hoffmann, M.R. James, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Most of these works were marked by what Mike Ashley called "detailed and exemplary introductions" by Bleiler as well.
Bleiler's most important contributions to scholarship of the literature of the fantastic include his editorship and production of a corpus of reference works that include The Checklist of Fantastic Literature: A Bibliography of Fantasy, Weird and Science Fiction Books Published in the English Language (1948, revised in 1978 as The Checklist of Science-Fiction and Supernatural Fiction); Science Fiction Writers (1982); The Guide to Supernatural Fiction (1983); Supernatural Fiction Writers (1985); Science-Fiction: The Early Years (1990); and Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years (1998).
In addition to his many nonfiction works, which also include numerous articles, reviews, introductions and translations (most notably a scholarly translation of Nostradamus in 1979), Bleiler also wrote two works of fiction, written in the 1970s but not published until 2006 by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box Press (BSBD), an independent Canadian publishing company. The works include Firegang: A Mythic Fantasy, and Magistrate Mai and the Invisible Murderer.
Everett Bleiler received several important awards and accolades over the course of his career, including the Pilgrim Award, presented by the Science Fiction Research Association in 1984 for lifetime achievement in the field of science fiction scholarship. He also received a World Fantasy Award (Special Award, Professional) in 1978, the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1988, the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award in 1994, and the International Horror Guild Living Legend Award in 2004. He was also nominated for 5 Locus Poll Awards, and 2 Hugo Awards.
Bleiler married Ellan Haas in 1956, and the two had four children: Richard (himself a science fiction historian, with whom Bleiler collaborated on several works), John, Constance, and Dorothy. He died on June 13, 2010, in Interlaken, New York.
John Henry Bliler was born on September 8, 1844, near Manchester, OH. Bliler enlisted in Company H, 104th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, on August 4, 1862. During the Civil War, he served in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia (including New Hope Church, Kennesaw Mountain, and the Atlanta campaign). He served under General William Tecumseh Sherman, and against such Southern generals as Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood.
Robert Bloch was born on April 4, 1917, in Chicago, Illinois. He wrote from the 1940s through the 1990s, publishing science fiction, fantasy, and horror, with a significant career in radio and television scriptwriting supplementing his fiction. Bloch is perhaps best-known for his horror fiction. He was honored as the guest of honor as several conventions. He was awarded the Hugo award, the E. E. Evans Memorial Award, a Screen Guild award, and numerous other awards in several fields. Bloch passed away on September 9, 1994, in Los Angeles, California.
Preston Morgan Bolton was a noted Houston architect whose career spanned from 1951-2011. The son of former University President Frank C. Bolton and his wife Lura, Bolton was born in College Station (on the campus of A&M, in fact) in 1920 and earned a degree from the Texas A&M College of Architecture in 1941. After graduating from Texas A&M, Preston joined the military and served in the European Theater during World War II.
At the end of the war, Bolton returned to Texas and settled in the Houston area in 1949. From 1951-1961 he directed an architectural firm in partnership with Willis Barnstone, leaving in 1962 to form a new firm, P.M. Bolton Associates. The majority of Bolton's work was done in and around the Houston, TX area. His style, heavily influenced by the International Style, was modern and minimalistic with an emphasis on warm interiors flooded with light. Most of his projects showcase practicality alongside luxurious materials. Over the course of his career, Bolton received multiple rewards and honors from his work with the Association of Former Students and the Houston Chapter of American Institute of Architects.
Bolton was also an active civic leader in Houston. He was a co-founder of the Houston Ballet as well as an early president of the Board of Trustees for the Alley Theatre. He served as a board member and key patron for a number of Houston-area arts groups, and he and his wife Pauline (married 1960) were pillars of the local cultural community.
Preston and Pauline W. Bolton had four children: Dean, Teresa, Elizabeth, and Mary. He died in Houston on November 2, 2011.
Charles R. Bond, Jr. was born in Dallas, TX on April 22, 1915 (d. August 18, 2009). His military career began in March 1938 when he enlisted in the Texas National Guard under the Aviation Cadet Program. In September 1941, he transferred to the Flying Tigers, an American volunteer air force serving in China. Charles Bond fought against the Japanese and received honors from the Chinese military for his bravery along with numerous American military honors. In October 1942, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps and became Chief of the Air Division, United States Military Mission to the U.S.S.R. in Moscow, where he served for one year as an aide to Ambassador Harriman. In 1947 Bond entered Texas A&M College underthe U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology program and graduated in 1949 with a BS in Management Engineering.
After graduation, Bond served as Chief of the Air Defense Plans Branch, Director of Plans, Organization and Requirements, Headquarters Continental Air Command (CONAC). Later, he attended the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, AL in 1951. From 1951 to 1954 General Bond served at Pepperrell Air Force Base, Newfoundland, as the Director of Air Defense and then Deputy for Operations, Headquarters Northeast Air Command (NEAC), and as Commander of the 64 thAir Division (NEAC). In July 1954, General Bond went to Colorado as Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations at the Continental Air Defense Command Headquarters. In September 1957, he was named Commander of the 25 thAir Division, McChord Air Force Base, Washington, and in August 1959 was assigned as Commander of the 28 thAir Division, Hamilton Air Force Base, California.
Major General Charles R. Bond, Jr. was assigned other various high ranking positons until his retirement from service August 1968.
At the age of 24, Don Bosworth was enlisted as an apprentice seaman at the Navy Recruiting Station at Syracuse, New York on June 13, 1917. His service number was 112-59-73. From August 1917 to August 1920, Don Bosworth served as a seaman, second class, on the third U.S.S. Albany, the United States Navy protected cruiser. He was discharged in San Francisco as a quartermaster of the second class on August 26, 1920.
The third U.S.S. Albany, originally named Almirante Abreu, was constructed in Newcastle, England by Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., for the Brazilian Government in 1879. She was purchased in 1898 by the United States. As the third U.S.S. Albany, she was launched in 1899 under the sponsorship of Mrs. John C. Colwell, the wife of the American naval attache in London.
In 1919, she joined the Asiatic Fleet. At that time, the Russian Civil War against Bolsheviks continued. The United States sent troops to Vladivostok, one of the ports where the Allied supplies had been stockpiled. The Albany stayed in Vladivostok until early 1920, protecting American troops on shore and evacuating sick and wounded men. She was decommissioned in 1922.
The Albany had a displacement of 3,340 tons, a length of 354 feet, 9.5 inches, and a beam of 43 feet, 9 inches. She was rated at 20.52 knots and was armed with six 6-inch guns, four 4.7-inch guns, ten 6-pounders, four 1-pounders, four machine guns, two field pieces, and three torpedo tubes.
Bibliography
Mooney, James L. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. vol. 1. 1959.
Mooney, James L. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. vol. 1. 1991.
War Service Records provided by New York State Archives.
Dr. Charles L. Boyd was born October 8, 1921, and died on October 4, 2017.
Ray Bradbury is an icon of science fiction and fantasy, needing no introduction. He is highly regarded in both fields, and is a staple of educational institutions.
Born on June 3, 1930, Marion Zimmer Bradley was a pioneering woman science fiction writer and is one of the most acclaimed and famous writers of American fantasy in the 20th century.
Her first published story, "Outpost", was the winner of an amateur fiction contest and was published in Amazing Stories in December 1949. In May 1957, Other Worlds published the first of Bradley's works set (though marginally) in her famous Darkover universe, "Falcons of Narabedia" (published in novel form in 1964).
Bradley's first original novel set in Darkover was The Planet Savers, published in 1962. Her long-running science fiction/fantasy series of novels and stories set in this universe concern hundreds of years of history on Darkover, a planet settled by the survivors of a crashed spaceship from Earth, who interbreed with the planet's natives, resulting in a population of psionically-gifted people. Bradley not only created and wrote in this universe herself but edited a number of anthologies of Darkover stories from other authors.
Over the decades of her writing, Bradley wrote a number of other novels and stories as well (not all were science fiction or fantasy, as she wrote several gay and lesbian pulp novels in the 1960s under pen names). Besides her Darkover works, she edited a long-running anthology series entitled Sword and Sorceress designed to encourage the portrayal of stronger female protagonists in sword-and-sorcery fantasy fiction, and she wrote or co-wrote several other fantasy series. Her most famous novel was the 1983 The Mists of Avalon, a feminist and New Age retelling of the Arthurian legend, where the protagonist Morgaine (the traditional evil sorceress Morgan Le Fay) is a sympathetic heroine, and a pagan priestess who stands in counterpoise to the growing influence of Christianity in early Britain. The book won the 1984 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and created legions of fans. A series of sequels were written by Bradley and Diana L. Paxson between 1993-2009.
Bradley was also active as an editor, having edited a number of fanzines and prozines, most notably Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine (1988-2000).
Bradley's work was nominated for a number of awards and honors over the course of her career. She won (posthumously) the 2000 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.
Her literary and personal legacies, however, have been repeatedly tarnished over the years. Bradley's second husband, Walter Breen, was notorious for allegations over the years against him of child molestation. Bradley married Breen in 1964 despite being aware of, and never reporting, his behavior. Breen was arrested and charged in 1991 with 8 counts of child molestation and sentenced to 10 years in prison, where he died of cancer in 1993. In 2014, Bradley's legacy took a harsher blow when her daughter Moira Greyland accused Bradley of having sexually abused her from the ages of 3 to 12. Bradley died on September 25, in Berkeley, CA in 1999.
Dr. Louis Brandt was a veterinarian in Germany and migrated to Texas in 1849. In Texas, he continued work as a renowned equine veterinary surgeon. He passed away on January 10, 1897.
Brazos Valley Gem and Mineral Society
Marie Brennan is the pen name of an author born in 1980 in Dallas, Texas, and graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in archaeology and folklore. She attended Indiana University Bloomington and completed the coursework for a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and folklore, but left in 2008 to write full-time. Brennan draws heavily on her academic background in her writing, taking inspiration from many real-world cultures and historical periods; she explores various aspects of world history and culture and how those inform her work in her New World Patreon, as well as on her website, Swan Tower: https://www.swantower.com/. She currently lives in northern California.
Her short story "Calling Into Silence" won the Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing in 2003; "The Legend of Anahata" won an Honorable Mention that same year. Her first publication was "White Shadow" in the anthology Summoned to Destiny, ed. Julie Czerneda, in 2004. In 2006 Warner Books published the fantasy duology of Doppelganger and Warrior and Witch. This was followed by her "Onyx Court" series of historical fantasies - set at various points in the history of London under which resides a court of Fae whose politics intertwine with the world above: Midnight Never Come (2008), In Ashes Lie (2009), A Star Shall Fall (2010) and With Fate Conspire(2011). In 2012, Brennan joined the online Book View Cafe and published on it the Wilders urban fantasy series, consisting of 2 novels and 2 shorter works published between 2012-2021.
Brennan's next fantasy series was set in a pastiche of Regency/Victorian Britain (and parts elsewhere). The titular character of The Memoirs of Lady Trent is a redoubtable lady adventurer and naturalist searching the world for evidence of long-vanished dragons, along the way facing and overcoming ingrained social prejudice against women. Lady Trent's adventures are chronicled in five volumes: A Natural History of Dragons (2013), The Tropic of Serpents (2014), Voyage of the Basilisk (2015), In The Labyrinth of Drakes (2016), and Within The Sanctuary of Wings (2017). A sixth volume, Turning Darkness Into Light, was released in 2019 with a new protagonist following in Lady Trent's footsteps. The series received a 2018 Hugo Award nomination for Best Series.
Brennan's more recent work has gone in several different directions. From 2016-2017, Brennan produced the 'Varekai' series of fantasy novellas, which tell the story of the mysterious warrior Ree and her quest to uncover her origins. In 2020, Brennan pulled together various of her shorter works together with a new framing chapter into the novella Driftwood, taking place in a fantasy world consisting wholly of older worlds that are aging and sinking gradually into oblivion. She has written three novels - The Eternal Knot (2019), The Night Parade of 100 Demons, and The Game of 100 Candles (2023) - set in Fantasy Flight Games' card game Legend of the Five Rings universe. In 2018, Brennan collaborated with Michael R. Underwood, Cassandra Khaw, and Malka Older on the original audio production Born to the Blade, featured on Serial Box (now Realm) and based in a world rooted in magical swordplay.
Most recently, Brennan and fellow author Alyc Helms are collaborating (under the joint pen name M.A. Carrick) on the Rook and Rose fantasy trilogy; the first volume, The Mask of Mirrors, was released in early 2021. The second volume, The Liar's Knot was released later that year, and the final volume, Labyrinth's Heart, came out in August 2023.
Brennan has written numerous works of short fiction, many of which have been assembled in five different collections, available through Book View Cafe. Since her first story in 2002, she has written close to 100 short stories, including, among her most recent, "This Living Hand" (2022), which was nominated for the 2023 WSFA Small Press Award. Most recently, she has been nominated, along with Yoon Ha Lee, for the 2023 Nebula Award for Game Writing for her work on Ninefox Gambit: Machineries of Empire Role Playing Game.
Albert S. Brient was a student at the College of Texas A&M and graduated in 1924 with a degree from the Agriculture Department. He later worked for the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, as a county agricultural agent of Cooke County. Brient was a native of Frankston, Texas, in Anderson County.
In 1923, Brient was the 7th member of Texas A&M's Varsity Men's Basketball team, which won the national championship that year over Rice University. While Brient's fellow teammates received T cards for their athletic prowess and performance, Brient was excluded. Brient's teammates and associates then began a letter-writing campaign in 1936, which was spearheaded by E. King Gill, the original "12th Man". Finally, in 1967, Albert S. Brient was awarded the honor bestowed upon his teammates well before him and earned his "T" card. He was 67 years old at the time.
Kristen Britain was born in Batavia, New York, and grew up in the Finger Lakes region of the state. She graduated from Ithaca College in 1987 with a degree in film production (and a minor in writing). Following graduation, Britain, inspired by a conversation she had with an National Park Service ranger at Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY, herself became a ranger. Over the years she worked at Clara Barton National Historic Site, Lowell NHP, Acadia NP, Mammoth Cave NP, Rocky Mountain NP, and Women’s Rights NHP.
In 1992 Britain moved to Maine, and the natural setting of Acadia National Park helped inspire and shape her fantasy writing. DAW published her first novel, Green Rider, in 1998 while Britain was still employed with the NPS. The novel tells the story of young Karigan G'ladheon, a merchant's daughter who, while running away from her home, through fate and circumstance becomes a "Green Rider", an elite messenger in the service of the king of Sacordia. The letters she finds herself delivering catapult her into a high-level political and magical conspiracy. Green Riderwas a finalist for the Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award for Best First Novel of 1998 and for the 1998 IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award. It also placed #5 in the 1999 _Locus_Poll Awards for Best First Novel.
The sequel to the novel, First Rider's Call, was released in 2003. Karigan's adventures have continued through several additional novels in the series: The High King's Tomb (2007), Blackveil (2011), Mirror Sight (2014), Firebrand (2017), and the most recent, Winterlight (2021). Blackveil was nominated for the 2012 David Gemmell Award for Best Fantasy Novel. Britain published a prequel novella, relating an early adventure of Green Rider Laren Mapstone, entitled Spirit of the Wood in 2023.
Britain has also written several pieces of short fiction, including "Avalonia" (2001), "Linked, on the Lake of Souls" (2002), and "Chafing the Bogey Man" (2008), among others. Some of her short fiction was published in the 2018 collection The Dream Gatherer.
She currently resides in Maine.
Holly Brown is a longtime _Star Trek_fan and fanfic writer, who writes under the pen name "Carleen". She was particularly interested in the Kirk/Spock "slash" relationship, and had several stories published in 1995 in the noted slash fanzine As I Do Thee. She continues to write the occasional K/S story, but now also writes stories set in the universes of several video games, including _Halo_and Mass Effect.
Yolanda Broyles-González was among the first Chicana Yaqui scholars to attain a doctorate degree and to achieve rank of full professor at a major research university, at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She received her doctorate degree in German Studies from Stanford University in German Studies and lived in Germany for 12 years where she helped bring Chicana/o and Latin American literature to a European readership. She corresponded extensively with German intellectuals and also engaged in photojournalism and feature writing while living in Germany. Her photographs from this period in Germany are part of the collection. Dr. Broyles-González has held academic appointments at the University of Texas (in Modern Languages), and at the University of California (Chicana/o Studies and German Studies). She is chairperson/ professor emerita of the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department at the University of California Santa Barbara. She also served as chairperson of the Women Studies Department at the University of Arizona in Tucson from 2004-08. Since 2008 she has been appointed in the Mexican American Studies Department at the University of Arizona. In 1996 she received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Chicana & Chicano Studies. After her pay equity lawsuit against the University of California she was honored by President Clinton in the White House.
Dr. Broyles-González’s publications span many areas of borderlands popular culture/performance studies. Her book publications include:
Lydia Mendoza’s Life in Music. La historia de Lydia Mendoza. Norteño Tejano Legacies (2001, 2004, 2006 Oxford University Press); El Teatro Campesino, Theater in the Chicano Movement(1994, UT Press); Re-Emerging Native Women of the Americas: Native Chicana Latina Women’s Studies(2001, Kendall/Hunt); Earth Wisdom. A California Chumash Woman(2011, University of Arizona Press); The German Response to Latin American Literature and the Reception of Jose Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda(1981, Heidelberg) .
Francisco González is a musician, composer, and specialist in Mexican and Chicano music. González was born and rasied in East Los Angeles surrounded by multiple Mexican musical traditions such as Norteño, and Jarocho music, as well as by jazz, rock, and salsa. During the last four decades he has worked in many capacities within Chicano/Mexican music; in performance around the world as a string musician specializing in Mexican harp; a recording artist; as a composer for films; doing lecture demonstrations; and in theater as a musical director for many professional theater productions. He founded, led, and composed the music for Los Lobos in the 1970s. Thereafter, he did award-winning musical direction and composition in Chicano theatrical productions, including five years of musical direction for numerous productions with the legendary El Teatro Campesino. González’s work in musical direction and performance gained widespread recognition. For outstanding musical direction and arrangement he was awarded the San Francisco Chronicle’s Circle Award “for outstanding achievement in the theater.” In the last ten years, González has also written and performed music for various films, such as for Cormack McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. Among his recordings are _The Gift/El regalo_and _Viejas Canciones para viejos amigos (Old Songs for Old Friends)._In 2011 González was honored by the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation with the Pearl Chase Award honored Gonález for his “lifelong dedication to historic preservation and conservation”—as director of the Santa Barbara Pastorela and for his revival of early California musics. In Tucson, Arizona he has been active establishing a Jarocho harp school for youth.
In addition to theater and film work, González regularly performs Jarocho and Norteño music at clubs, fiestas, and other social gatherings. He also offers workshops for musicians, and lecture demonstrations on Mexican/Chicano music at universities, schools, and for community groups. González, under the name of Dueto Guadalupe, plays Mexican harp music within the jarocho and ranchera traditions. He performs throughout the country accompanied by his daughter Esmeralda Broyles-González on jarana. In June 2004, González received national recognition from the Smithsonian. He was recognized at the American Folk life Festival for his contributions as a music string craftsman. His custom-made strings produced at Guadalupe Custom Strings in Santa Barbara, California (now in Los Angeles) are distributed internationally.
John Brunner (September 24, 1934) was a noted British author of science fiction novels and short stories. His first work, Galactic Storm, was written in 1951 under the pseudonym Gill Hunt, and most of his early work consisted of traditional space opera. Starting in the late 1960s, however, Brunner began turning towards more experimental forms of science fiction. His 1968 New Wave novel Stand on Zanzibar appropriated the narrative style pioneered by John Dos Passos, with a mixture of traditional story and large portions devoted to exploring his world's culture and society through advertisements, snippets from books and songs, overheard bits of conversations, and other cultural fragments. The book, which won the 1969 British Science Fiction Award for Best Novel, the 1969 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the 1973 Prix Apollo, tells the story of a 21st century Earth plagued by problems relating to overpopulation.
Other significant works by Brunner include: The Jagged Orbit (1969), which won the 1970 British Science Fiction award and was nominated for the 1970 Nebula for Best Novel; The Sheep Look Up (1972); The Shockwave Rider (1975), in which Brunner invented the concept of a computer 'worm'; and The Infinitive of Go (1980). Infinitive, which was published by Ballantine/Del Rey in 1980, concerns the development of a type of transportation technology that leads to the inadvertent creation of alternate realities.
Brunner died on August 25, 1995, while attending the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, Scotland.
Edward W. (Winslow) Bryant, Jr. was born on August 27, 1945, in White Plains, New York, but was raised in Wyoming, where he received his MA in English (University of Wyoming, 1968). He attended the famed Clarion Writer's Workshop in 1968, and in 1972 moved to Denver, Colorado, where he founded the Northern Colorado Writer's Workshop, and where he spent the remainder of his life. The NCWW counted among its alumni such acclaimed authors as Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem, Wil McCarthy, Bruce Holland Rogers, Dan Simmons, and Connie Willis. Bryant also helped found and run many other workshops and classes as well, including the Colorado Springs Writers Workshop.
Bryant was an accomplished SF writer, working primarily in short fiction. His first published stories, released in early 1970, were “They Come Only in Dreams” and “Sending the Very Best”. Over the succeeding decades he wrote more than 100 short stories, notably including the Nebula Award-nominated works "Shark" (1973), "Particle Theory" (1977), "The Hibakusha Gallery" (1977), "Strata" (1980), and "The Thermals of August" (1981). He won the Nebula Award for "Stone" (1978) and "gIANTS" (1979), both of which were also Hugo Award finalists. Other stories of note include World Fantasy- and Stoker Award finalist “A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned” (1989), Stoker nominee “The Loneliest Number” (1990), and Sturgeon Memorial Award nominee “The Fire that Scours” (1994). Many of Bryant's stories were published in collections including Among the Dead and Other Events Leading up to the Apocalypse (1973), Cinnabar (1976), a collection of linked far-future stories, Wyoming Sun (1980), Particle Theory (1981), Neon Twilight (1990), Darker Passions (1991), The Baku: Tales of the Nuclear Age (2001), Trilobyte (2014), and Predators and Other Stories (2014).
In 1975 Bryant published his single novel Phoenix Without Ashes, co-written with Harlan Ellison. He also wrote several chapbooks between 1990-1993, and contributed stories to his friend George R.R. Martin's "Wild Cards" universe in the anthologies Wild Cards (1987), Jokers Wild (1987), Aces Abroad (1988), Down and Dirty (1988), and Dealer's Choice (1992).
Bryant was an active critic during his career, as well as a Toastmaster and/or Chair for various important genre conventions, including Devention II, the World Fantasy Convention, ArmadilloCon, and the World Horror Convention. In 1996, the International Horror Guild presented Bryant with its Living Legends Award.
Edward Bryant died at his home in Denver on February 10, 2017.
Gideon J. Buck wished to succeed Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross as President of A & M. College on two occasions. He first wished to take the position in 1894, but Ross remained for another term. After the death of Governor Ross, Mr. Buck made another attempt to fill the vacancy of Ross's position in 1898.
Gideon Buck graduated in 1857 from Union University in Tennessee, receiving at the age of seventeen a special degree of language. Among his many education-related positions, Buck was principal of Sumpterville Academy in Alabama for two years, he filled the Chair of Languages at Madison College in Tennessee, and he later served as president of Salado College in Texas.
Buck left Salado College to join the Confederate Army. He entered as a private and was appointed Drill Officer of his regiment with the rank of First Lieutenant. After the war, he practiced law for twelve years. The collection includes many letters written by Buck's friends and colleagues, recommending him for the position of President of A & M, College of Texas.
David Roosevelt Bunch was born in 1925 in Lowry City, MO. He received a BS degree from Central Missouri State University, and an MA in English from Washington University, St. Louis. Bunch is the author of over 200 stories and poems prior to 1957 when he published his first science fiction story, "Routine Emergency". He is categorized as an American proponent of the "New Wave" subgenre. Bunch published over 75 science fiction stories from 1957-1997, of which some 40 were collected into anthologies. Bunch was included in Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions. Bunch was nominated for a Philip K. Dick award in 1993, for a Promethean Lamp poetry award in 1966, and won first prize for long poems in the Scimitar and Song Awards for 1969. He died May 29, 2000 in St. Louis, MO.
Anthony Burgess (John Anthony Burgess Wilson) was born on February 25, 1917, in Manchester, UK, and died November 25, 1993. He graduated with honors from Manchester University with a B.A. in 1940 and went on to work for the Ministry of Education (1948-1950) and for the British Colonial Service (1954-1959, Malaya and Brunei).
Burgess was a prolific author and composer. He wrote textbooks, novels, poems, essays, scripts for stage television and film, essays, symphonies, and other material. He is best known for the novel A Clockwork Orange (1962) but also is highly regarded for his other work. Critics judge him as one of the most prolific and important writers of the twentieth century.
Burgess died in London on November 22, 1993.
Austin E. Burgess became the editor of the student-run newspaper, The Battalion, and wrote the first printed history of Texas A&M, published in 1915.
Burns, William Wallace, 1825-1892
William Wallace Burns (1825-1892) was born at Coshocton, Ohio September 3, 1825. At age 17 he was appointed to the United States Military Academy from which he graduated in 1847. He was posted to the United States Army Infantry and served during the Mexican American War (1846-1848) on recruiting duty, then spent several years at various Indian posts in the West and Southwest. In 1858, he accepted a staff commission as Commissary of Subsistence with the rank of Captain.
Remaining with the U. S. Army, Burns served with the Army of the Potomac in the first months of the Civil War as General George B. McClellan's Chief Commissary in the West Virginia Campaign. Burns was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers September 28, 1861, and beginning the following Spring in the Peninsular Campaign (March-August 1862), commanded a Brigade of General John Sedwick's 2nd Division 2nd Corps, during which Burns was wounded and favorably mentioned by McClellan. On sick leave for some months, Burns subsequently commanded the 1st Division, 9th Corps at the Battle of Fredericksburg (December 11-13, 1862).
On March 20, 1863, Burns resigned his Volunteer commission and reverted to his staff rank of Major and Commissary. He served as Chief Commissary in the Department of the Northwest until the close of the Civil War and later discharged with distinction the same duties in various Southern departments.
Following the Civil War, Burns was promoted in the Commissary service, first to Lieutenant Colonel (1874), then to Colonel (1884). In the meantime, he had been breveted Brigadier General March 13, 1865, for gallant and meritorious services in the Civil War. William Wallace Burns retired on September 3, 1889, and died April 19, 1892, at Beaufort, South Carolina. He was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.
Bibliography
"William Wallace Burns, Brigadier General, United States Army." Arlington National Cemetery Website. [Viewed 10/15/02:12: 22 PM at: ]
Eugene Butler was born on June 11, 1894, in Starkville, Mississippi. His father, Dr. Tait Butler, was co-supervisor of Progressive Farmer magazine and a professor of veterinary medicine at Mississippi A&M (now Mississippi State). Butler enrolled in Mississippi A&M in 1909 and received his first bachelor's degree in 1913 at the age of nineteen. He then worked as a farm laborer for four years to gain experience while simultaneously pursuing additional degrees. He received a second bachelor's degree in Agriculture from Cornell University in 1915. From Cornell, he went to Iowa State University where he received a master's degree in Agronomy in 1917. His education completed, Butler returned home to work with his father and soon became involved with the Progressive Farmer as an assistant editor in Memphis, Tennessee.
After his initial position as assistant editor, Butler rapidly climbed the Progressive Farmer administrative ladder. In 1922 he became editor of the Texas edition of Progressive Farmer and manager of the Dallas office. He remained in Dallas and became a member of the executive committee in 1939, vice-president of the board of directors in 1943, and president of the company in 1953. Six years later he was named chairman of the editorial board and editor-in-chief.
Butler served as president of the Progressive Farmer Company until 1968, after which the company's name was changed to Southern Progress Corporation. However, he retained his titles as chairman of the board and editor-in-chief. In 1983 Southern Progress Corporation was purchased by Time Inc. Since his retirement as editor-in-chief, Butler has remained active in the Progressive Farmer Company by continuing to research and write the history of the company.
Following in his father's footsteps, Butler achieved many goals for the Progressive Farmer Company during his more than half a century as editor. Among these achievements were two new additions to the company: Southern Living and the Oxmoor Press of Birmingham, Alabama.
Butler did not restrict himself to working on the magazine, however. His interests lay in almost any area relating to agriculture. Some of his more significant involvements were in crusades for better rural life, farm legislation, and farm practices. Throughout his career, Butler gave numerous speeches, wrote hundreds of articles and editorials, and collected extensive information on contemporary agricultural issues ranging from rural health to better methods of cotton fertilization. In the fifty years of his activity, Butler worked for and witnessed remarkable progress in many of these areas.
He was a charter member of the Texas Agricultural Workers Association, a charter member and historian of the Dallas Agricultural Club, and a researcher and activist for cotton insect control.
In recognition of his contributions, both to the Progressive Farmer and other causes, Butler received several awards. Among them were the Hoblitzelle Award in 1953 and an award for "Outstanding Contribution to Welfare of all Texas Agriculture through Accurate and Effective Presentation of Information and Constructive Leadership" given by the Texas Cottonseed Crushers Association.
Always very active and involved, Butler has enjoyed reading, gardening, collecting books on the Confederacy, golfing, and fishing all his life.
Butler married Mary Britt Burns in 1921. They had one son, Eugene Britt, and one daughter, Mary Jean. The son followed in his father's footsteps in working for the Progressive Farmer Company.