John Baptis Rayner (1850-1918) was born a slave in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1850 graduated from Shaw University, and held a number of public offices in Tarboro in the 1870s, before migrating to Robertson County, Texas, in 1881. Polically active in Texas, he became a leader in the People's Party and an advocate for Texas African-Americans.

More information can be found in the Handbook of Texas Online.

First president of the NIRA, was an Animal Science major at Texas A&M.

Cat Ramos has been a Star Trek fan since The Original Series(TOS), the movies, and The Next Generation (TNG), and has been especially enamored of the Klingons and Klingon culture. She was inspired to begin writing Klingon fanfic in 1989, after reading John M. Ford's 1984 Star Trek tie-in novel The Final Reflection (TFR). Final Reflection was a complex exploration of Klingon culture and society, and has been well-received and cherished by fans (though it is considered non-canonical in the overall Trek universe).

Ramos' stories feature original characters created from her "trekkified" family and friends, and based mainly on TFR and the FASA "Starfleet" RPG materials (and canon sources when they do not conflict.) Ford was one of her major creative inspirations. As Ramos traveled for work, she gradually met new friends in Klingon fandom ('klinfandom') who liked her stories, so she continued writing a multi-part Klingon space opera, Citizen of the Empire, along with companion tales.

Ramos learned to speak Klingon and was honored to translate the handfasting vows of "our epetai John M. Ford and his Lady Lioness." Most recently, she completed a companion fanfic trilogy , Choosers of the Slain, about a Romulan destroyer and a Betazoid healer, written for some of her friends in fandom.

Cat Ramos is married, and has one daughter, Tigerlily, and four granddaughters.

Founded in 1991, the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute (RESI) was established to highlight Texas A&M University's strengths and academic leadership in research relating to the study of race and ethnicity and their various dimensions (e.g., intersections with class, gender, and sexuality; past, present, and future relevance to issues of education, immigration, politics, culture, and health).

RESI was founded by Dr. Gail E. Thomas (1991-98) and Dr. Mitchell F. Rice (1999-2004). Dr. Thomas is Professor of Sociology, Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo, California and Dr. Rice is currently Professor of Political Science in the Bush School of Government at Texas A&M University. In 2006 Dr. Joseph Jewell was named interim director until his departure in 2008. RESI current interim director is Dr. Sarah N. Gatson, Associate Professor in Sociology.

Texas State Historical Association, Ellen Dorothy Schulz Quillin.

Wikipedia, Ellen Schulz Quillin.

HaithiTrust, Quillin, Ellen Schulz, 1892-1970.

Publications by Ellen Schulz Quillin within Texas A&M University Libraries holdings:

500 Wild Flowers of San Antonio and Vicinity
Quillin, Ellen Schulz. 500 Wild Flowers of San Antonio and Vicinity. San Antonio, Tex.: The author, 1922.

Texas Wild Flowers: A Popular Account of the Common Wild Flowers of Texas
Quillin, Ellen Schulz. Texas Wild Flowers: A Popular Account of the Common Wild Flowers of Texas. Chicago, New York: Laidlaw brothers, 1928.

Texas Cacti: A Popular and Scientific Account of the Cacti Native of Texas
Quillin, Ellen Schulz, and Robert Runyon. Texas Cacti: A Popular and Scientific Account of the Cacti Native of Texas. San Antonio, Tex.: Texas Academy of Science, 1930.

Cactus Culture
Quillin, Ellen Schulz, and Ben Carlton Mead. Cactus Culture. Rev. ed. New York: Orange Judd Pub. Co., 1942.

The Story of the Witte Memorial Museum, 1922-1960
Woolford, Bess Carroll, Ellen Schulz Quillin, and Ben Carlton Mead. The Story of the Witte Memorial Museum, 1922-1960. [San Antonio?]: [publisher not identified], 1966.

Joseph F. Pamilia was born in Houston, TX on March 10, 1945. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Houston in 1967, and graduated from the UH School of Journalism in 1970. A reporter, copywriter and typesetter, he began his science fiction writing career in 1971 with the story "Niggertown", which was published as part of the 1971 anthology Black Hands on a White Face. Some of his other stories include "Willowisp" (1974), "Hung Like An Elephant" (with Steven Utley, 1974), "Forever Stand The Stones" (1975), "The Case of James Elmo Freebish" (1976), and "Myth of the Ape God" (1978).

Pamilia also wrote a number of stories and poems under the name M. M. Moamrath, which were deliberate lampoons of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Howard.

Theodore Francis Powys was a British writer of short stories and novels, was the brother of John Cowper Powys and Llewelyn Powys. He was born in Derbyshire and spent most of his life in the West Country, writing mostly while living at East Chaldon in Dorset.

Llewelyn Powys (August 13, 1884 - December 2, 1939), wrote a wide variety of works, including essays, a biography, a novel, travel books, works of popular philosophy and propaganda, autobiographical memoirs, and "an imaginary autobiography".

Born in Dorset, England, Llewelyn Powys moved with his family to the village of Montacute in Somerset, England, where his father would be rector for the next thirty-three years. Powys was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1909. Though he spent the next two years in a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland, he was never to regain full heath.

From 1914 to 1919 Llewelyn Powys lived in Kenya, managing a farm for his brother William, who was in military service during World War I. In 1919, Llewelyn moved to the United States, marrying Alyse Gregory in October 1924 who was the managing editor of the Dial magazine as well as a widely known and connected New York novelist and essayist. Powys returned to England again in 1925, the pattern of leaving and returning to England informs the rest of Powys' life until the last few most productive years of his life, between 1931 and 1936, when he remained to write in his boyhood home of Dorset, England, Llewelyn Powys only achieved fame by forsaking his homeland and publishing outside of England.

In autumn 1936, Llewelyn Powys' health severely deteriorated and he left England in December for the sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland, in which he died in 1939.

The Reverend Charles Francis Powys (1843-1923) and Mary Cowper (Johnson) Powys (1849-1914) raised eleven children in Somerset and Dorset, England. Among them was an impressive number of talented writers and artists.
Three of the brothers, John Cowper (1872-1963), Theodore Charles (1906-1931), and Francis Llewelyn (1909-1998), rose to literary prominence during the first half of the twentieth century.
Others of the siblings excelled in their own respective fields:
Gertrude Mary (1877-1952), a practiced painter and book illustrator, sometimes lent her talents to her siblings' publications.
Albert Reginald 'A.R.' (1881-1936), an architect and an important early advocate for historic preservation as an officer in the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.
Emily Marian (1882-1872), an expert on the decorative art of lace-making.
Catharine 'Katie' Edith Philippa (1886-1963), published several collections of poems and one novel (and composed much more which was not published during her lifetime)
William Ernest (1888-1978), farmed in Africa, often sent watercolor paintings along with his letters.

Littleton Charles (1874-1955)
Eleanor (1879-1893)
Violet Dodds (1887-1956)
Lucy Amelia (1890-1986)
Littleton Alfred (1902-1954)
Sally Upfield (1910-1993)
Elizabeth Douglas

Although many of the siblings dispersed across the globe in pursuit of their respective vocations, they maintained close relationships through the frequent exchange of letters.

John Powers, a native of Fort Worth obtained baccalaureate degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and its school of law before entering private law practice in Austin. After serving twenty-three years as a justice and senior justice, he retired from the Austin Court of Appeals in 2004. He continues to reside in Austin with his wife Deborah. Deborah Powers is also a University of Texas graduate and was a Certified Public Accountant. She worked for the State of Texas as the plan administrator for the state's two deferred compensation plans and as a supervising auditor. She was also a research analyst for the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

The Powers have two daughters, both graduates of Texas A & M University, and they currently reside in Austin and Bastrop.

Jay Martin Poole, originally J. Martene Pettypool, was born on August 6, 1934, in Clinton, OK. He worked as the Assistant Director for Collection Development from 1981 to 1985 and the Assistant Director of Collection and Bibliographic Services from 1991 to 1992 at the Sterling C. Evans Library, Texas A&M University. Jay consistently was consulted in the latter part of his life on projects regarding libraries at A&M, such as the Computing and Study Complex (the Annex).

He kept up constant communications with a variety of people; Jay was clearly an easy confidant, well-liked and loved by all of his friends. His agendas and daybooks dating over 15 years, as well as his neatly organized personal papers, means he was quite meticulous in documenting his life. He lived a life full of laughter, generosity, and widespread influence. Jay's time at Texas A&M was marked by a commemorative tree on campus.

Frederik Pohl is an icon of science fiction. He has progressed through the various aspects of the genre, active as a fan, writer, editor, and literary agent. He edited Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories, and later edited both Galaxy and If magazines. Pohl is highly regarded as a writer, with The Space Merchants, Man Plus, Gatewayi and Jem cited among his noteworthy efforts.

The Poem of the Month Club was founded in 1970 by Jack H. Clark and Winston Fletcher. The mission of the club was to publish a "substantial and characteristic" original poem by a leading British poet. Among the poets published by the club were W.H. Auden, Robert Graves, Seamus Heaney, Philip Larkin, Cecil Day-Lewis and Stevie Smith. The poems were printed on fine quality broadsides, suitable for framing, and signed by the author.

Roy Fuller, poet and Professor of at Oxford, and Cecil Day-Lewis, poet laureate, were the club's professional advisors who helped to solicit and select poems for publication. From 1970-1977 the club published four folios of twelve poems each. (The last two poems of the fourth folio were not published until 1977, although the folio is dated 1973-1974.) The Poem of the Month Club ended in 1977, a victim of declining interest and increased difficulty in finding new material.

Pinkwater was born in Memphis, TN in 1941. Primarily a writer of Children’s books, he has won a variety of awards for his books

Daniel Manus Pinkwater was born on November 15, 1941 in Memphis, TN. Raised in Chicago, he graduated from Bard College in 1964.

Pinkwater's career as a writer and illustrator of young adult and children's fantasy began with the 1970 publication of The Terrible Roar. Since then he has written close to 100 books. His 1994 book _Ned Feldman, Space Pirate,_was nominated for the 1995 Golden Duck Picture Book Award.

Karl T. Pflock was an author of fiction and nonfiction, best known for his book Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, on the Roswell, NM, flying saucer controversy. He published five stories in the SF magazines. Pflock served in a number of government jobs, returning to full time writing in 1992. Pflock died June 5, 2006.

Karl Tomlinson Plfock (1943-2006) was a science fiction writer, born in San Diego, CA, who was even more well-known as an investigator and authority on UFOs (unidentified flying objects). From 1985-1989 he was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Deputy Director) for Operational Test and Evaluation, where he guided development and implementation of Department of Defense policy governing weapons systems and equipment testing. Before that, from 1983-1985 Pflock was Special Assistant for Defense, Space, and Science and Technology to Congressman Ken Kramer, and from 1981-1983 served as a senior staff member for the U.S. House Republican Conference under Congressman Jack Kemp.

As Senior Strategic Planner with BDM International (1989-92), Mr. Pflock led the contractor team providing comprehensive planning and technical support for development of the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons complex environmental restoration and waste management strategic plan and the department-wide plan for waste minimization. He also provided strategic planning and international market analysis services to the chief executive officer and senior management of Ford Motor Company and conducted strategic analyses for several leading aerospace firms. Pflock graduated in 1964 from San Jose State University with a B.A. in philosophy and political science. From 1966-1972 he was an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition to his small group of science fiction stories, Pflock also published, in 2001, a nonfiction book, Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will To Believe, the culmination of his decades-long work studying the UFO "incident" at Roswell in 1947, which he concluded was part of a secret US military program to detect atomic bomb testing by the Soviet Union.

Steve Perrin was an American game designer and technical writer/editor, best known for creating the tabletop role-playing game [RPG] RuneQuest for Chaosium. In 1966, Perrin was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), the living history/historical reenactment group dedicated to "the research and re-creation of pre-seventeenth century skills, arts, combat, culture, and employing knowledge of history to enrich the lives of participants through events, demonstrations, and other educational presentations and activities. SCA is probably most known (certainly most visible) for its historical "tournaments" in which participants reenact jousts, medieval combat, and other historical activities.

Perrin first entered the RPG scene with "The Perrin Conventions" in 1976, a set of alternative rules for Dungeons & Dragons combat, which led to his work on RuneQuest. Perrin and his colleague Jeff Pimper published with Chaosium a D&D-based monster manual in 1977, which they called All the Worlds' Monsters, which beat TSR's more famous Monster Manual to market.Perrin - along with Steve Henderson and Warren James - began working on an idea for an original gaming system for their imagined world Glorantha, and were soon joined by Ray Turney from the original failed design team; this was finally published in 1978 as RuneQuest. RuneQuest proved to be an immensely popular gaming system, with new editions continuing to be produced through the present day. It was the source of a set of "Basic Role-Playing" rules that could be and were applied to a variety of different RPGs.

Perrin officially joined Chaosium in 1981, where he helped contribute to Thieves' World (1981). Perrin's Worlds of Wonder (1982) was the third release under Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing system. Superworld, one of Worlds of Wonders'worlds, became its own game, and in 1984 Perrin wrote the BRP-based Elfquest, based on the Elfquest comic book.While at Chaosium Perrin also created the RPG Stormbringer, based on the fiction of Michael Moorcock, and contributed to Call of Cthulhu.

He worked at Interplay Productions, Maxis, and Spectrum Holobyte, doing game design, playtesting, and writing manuals for a number of different computer games. In 2010, Perrin began creating PDF adventures for the games Icons and Mutants & Masterminds, and completed several scenarios for Vigilance Press and Fainting Goat Press. In 2019, he returned to Chaosium as a creative consultant. In 2020, he contributed to the Wild Cards novel Joker Moon.

Perrin died on August 13, 2021.

Maxwell Perkins of Charles Scribner's Sons publishing House.

Julian Pennybacker was a Texas A&M student from Palestine, TX who graduated in 1886 with a BS in Agriculture. He was born in 1875 in Mississippi, and his family later moved to Palestine, Texas located in Anderson County. He was a brother-in-law to the Texas Women's rights suffragist, Anna J. H. Pennybacker.

William Robinson (1818-1876) made his name as a journalist, writing for and editing many New England newspapers during a long career, especially known for his strong views in various reform movements and as a radical anti-slavery voice. "Charles Sumner, John A. Andrew, Henry Wilson, John G. Whittier, and other Massachusetts radicals" were among his friends (see DAB). The editor, Harriet Hanson Robinson (1825-1911), worked in the Lowell, Massachusetts, mills as a young woman and was also involved in various 19th-century reform movements, especially suffrage, helping organize the National Woman Suffrage Association of Massachusetts as an ally of Susan B. Anthony and publishing Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement (1881). "Her life was perhaps more valuable for what she experienced than for what she achieved" (NAW). Bird, Webb, Warland, Pitman, Russell, and Griffin were all journalists who worked with Robinson on mid-19th century New England newspapers or periodicals and of whom he writes in his reminiscences.

Four of the letters were written to Harriet Robinson, including the one from Lucy Larcom (12mo, 4-pages, declining an invitation to a wedding and discussing other personal matters: two others were written to third parties among the correspondents and forwarded with other letters to the Robinsons. The balance were addressed to Mr. Robinson and cover a broad range of personal and business issues, notes on meetings and current events, and musings on life, journalism, and the various reform movements all were involved with to one degree or another.

The portraits and views, representing a wide range of 19th-century American historic events and sites and public figures, include engravings, some hand-colored, eight photographs (including ones of Charles Sumner, John Wilkes Booth, Charles A. Dana, General Butler, and Benjamin Shillaber), woodcuts, chromolithographs, cartoons, a gilt silhouette of Elijah Lovejoy, a small broadside advocating the election of General McClellan to the presidency in 1864, an engraved illustrated invitation to Horace Greeley's 61st birthday, and other plates, some inlaid to size.

Gustav Hermann Pape was born near Hanover, Germany in 1881. His family later moved to Brenham, TX. Gustav Hermann Pape graduated from Texas A&M College with a BS in Civil Engineering in 1904. He spent six years in West Africa introducing cotton growing on behalf of German Textile firms. Gustav H. Pape started a cotton firm of Wilson, Nabors & Pape in Waco, TX. Pape also co-owned cotton firms in Germany with Mr. Williams. Gustav Hermann Pape married Eleanor Fay (Nell) Jurney of Waco, TX in 1912. Gustav H. Pape retired in 1951.

Alexei Panshin was born on August 14, 1940, in Lansing, Michigan. He has a B. A. from Michigan State University and A Master's in Librarianship from the University of Chicago. Panshin is a well-known writer and critic of science fiction. His first published story appeared in 1963. His best-known work is Rite of Passage, published in 1968. His critical studies, Heinlein in Dimension, Science Fiction in Dimension, and The World Beyond the Hill, are well-regarded in academic circles. Panshin died in August 2022.

Ada Palmer is a cultural and intellectual historian who grew up in Annapolis, MD. She attended Simon's Rock College of Bard from 1997-1999, and then transferred to Bryn Mawr, where she graduated in 2001. She obtained her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2009. From 2009-2014 Palmer was an Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University, specializing in the history of the Renaissance. In 2014 Palmer became an Assistant Professor in the History Department at the University of Chicago. She published her first monograph, Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance, based on her dissertation, in 2014. She teaches on European intellectual history, the Renaissance, Early Modern and Enlightenment periods in Europe, and the history of science and technology, among other topics.

Palmer is very active in the science fiction fan and filker communities. She is an authority on manga and anime and has staffed a number of anime conventions, with special attention paid to cosplay events. In addition, she composes and performs her own music (mostly a capella) that generally incorporates folk and Renaissance styles. She is a member of the a cappella filk group Sassafras, and as part of that group has composed a song cycle based on Norse mythology and the history of medieval Iceland in which the myths took their most well-known written form, entitled Sundown: Whispers of Ragnarok.

In addition to this, Palmer is also a science fiction novelist. Her first series, Terra Ignota, had the first book, Too Like The Lightning, released in May 2016. Set in Earth's far future, the series is written in the style of 18th-century philosophical fiction. It received the 2017 Compton Crook Award and was nominated in 2017 for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. The sequel, Seven Surrenders, was released in early 2017, and the third volume in the series, The Will To Battle later that year. The final volume in the series, Perhaps The Stars was released in late 2021.

Palmer won the 2017 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Grace Paley was born in the Bronx in 1922 to a family of socialist Russian Jewish immigrants.

Grace Paley, the first recipient of the Edith Wharton Citation of Merit in 1989. Also in 1989 she was honored by New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who declared her the first official New York State Writer. She received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1961, a grant from the National Endowment Board of P.E.N. In Spring 1987, Ms. Paley was awarded a Senior Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts, in recognition of her lifetime contribution to literature. Also included among her awards and honors are: the 1994 Jewish Cultural Achievement Award for Literary Arts; the 1993 Vermont Award for Excellence in the Arts; the 1992 REA Award for Short Stories.

She began her writing career as a poet, but is most known for her mastery of the short story. Asked once why she has never written a novel, Grace said,"Art is too long and life is too short."

She draws from her experiences growing up in New York City to capture the everyday situations of immigrant Jews, poor blacks and others who shared her existence in the neighborhoods, playgrounds and subways of her city. Her stories champion realistic characters who, against all the odds, take a chance to make "enormous changes at the last minute."

Grace has been a feminist and peace activist; involved in anti-war, feminist and anti-nuclear movements. Ms. Paley has been a member of the War Resister's League, resist, and Women's Pentagon Action, and was one of the founders of the Greenwich Village Peace Center in 1961; she regards herself as a "somewhat combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist."

From the start of her writing career, the power of dialogue has been an important element of her work: one of her recurring story lines has been the portrayal of the relationships that women develop by talking to each other. Paley has also been active in fighting for various social concerns, from protests against the Vietnam War to demonstrations against the production of nuclear weapons. Her short stories are collected in such volumes as The Little Disturbances of Man (1959), Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974), and Later the Same Day (1985). She has three collections of poetry, including Leaning Forward, also published in 1985, as well as a collection of poems and prose pieces, Long Walks and Intimate Talks. Ms. Paley's stories have appeared in The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly, among other publications.

Grace studied at Hunter College and New York University, Merchants & Bankers Business and Secretarial School. Ms. Paley has taught at Columbia University, Syracuse University, City College of New York, Dartmouth and Sarah Lawrence College, where she has taught creative writing and literature.

Her childhood was filled with a rich heritage of storytelling by her father, mother and aunts. Grace has two children and lives between New York City and Thetford, Vermont.

William A. Owens, noted folklorist, author, and educator, was born in Pin Hook, Texas on November 2, 1905, the son of Charles Owens and Jessie Ann (Chenault) Owens. He spent his childhood on the small cotton farms around tiny rural communities of Pin Hook, Novice, Faught, and Blossom. Owens was indeed a child of the poverty and hard times that had gripped the agricultural regions of the South since the Civil War and Reconstruction. These early years, were, however, tempered by the love and closeness of his family, a family that sometimes had as many as four generations living under one roof. His father had died only a few days after Owens' birth, and it was from his mother that he learned the values of hard work and self reliance. In addition, he acquired a love of reading and a desire to obtain an education beyond the one room schoolhouses of Lamar County.

In an effort to finance his education, Owens undertook numerous odd jobs as a farmer's hired hand, stock clerk, and for a short time, combination waiter and dishwasher at Dallas University. In 1924 he entered East Texas State Teachers College in Commerce. Studying long hours on his own to make up for the deficiencies in his country school education and waiting tables and picking cotton to pay his way, Owens earned a high school diploma and elementary teaching certificate. After graduation, however, there were few jobs available in country schools and Owens lacked the qualifications to teach in the larger school systems.

Owens moved to Paris, Texas and for the next few years struggled against nearly overwhelming economic hardships to continue school at the newly opened junior college. Although these were very difficult times, he never lost sight of continuing his education and becoming a teacher.

With two years of college completed and a new teaching certificate, he returned to Pin Hook to teach in the one room school he had left only five years before. After two years teaching in country schools, Owens returned to college. He attended Southern Methodist University where he received the BA degree in 1932 and the MA degree in 1933. In 1941, he received his Ph.D. from the State University of Iowa. The title of his dissertation was "Texas Folk Songs."

With the completion of the Master's degree, Owens began his profession in earnest, compiling an enviable record as an academician with legions of grateful former students. During his career Owens taught at Greenville High School in Greenville, Texas (1934-35); Wesley College in Greenville, Texas (1935-36); Mississippi State College (1936); Robert E. Lee High School in Goose Creek, Texas (1936-37); Texas A & M University (1937-40, 1941-1947); University of Texas (1946); Columbia University (1947-1974). Additionally he served as Director of Research in Folk Materials (1941) and Director of the Oral History of Texas Oil Pioneers (1952-58) at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. He also served as Director of the Summer Session (1959-1969) and Dean of the Summer Session (1969-72) at Columbia University. During World War II, Dr. Owens took leave from Texas A & M University and served with distinction as Officer in the United States Army, receiving the Legion of Merit for "meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service in Luzon, Philippines Islands" while serving with the 306th Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment.

While his career as teacher, lecturer, and administrator has been full, he is more widely known as a gifted author. In addition to numerous articles, reviews and short stories, his books serve as monuments to his craft. His works include Swing and Turn: Texas Play-Party Games (1936); Texas Folk Songs (1950, revised in 1976); Slave Mutiny: The Revolt on the Schooner Amistad (1953); Walking on Borrowed Land (1954); Fever in the Earth (1958); Look to the River (1963); This Stubborn Soil (1966); Three Friends: Bedichek, Dobie, Webb (1969); Tales From the Derrick Floor (with Mody C. Boatright, 1970); A Season of Weathering (1973); and A Fair and Happy Land (1975).

Dr. Owens married Ann S. Wood on December 23, 1946. Their two children are Jessie Ann and David Edward.

Symmes Chadwick (Chad) Oliver was born on March 30, 1928, in Cincinnati, Ohio, residing there until his family moved to Crystal City, Texas during World War II. He discovered science fiction at age 12, as he recovered from a bout of rheumatic fever, and never lost his love for the genre. Oliver attended the University of Texas at Austin, earning a B. A. degree in 1951, and a Master's degree in English in 1952. His thesis, "They Builded a Tower," was one of the earlier critical studies of the genre. His letters reveal an early attraction to anthropology that culminated in 1961 with a Ph. D. in anthropology from UCLA, and field study in Kenya. Oliver sold his first science fiction story in 1950 and remained active as a writer for the rest of his life. He is credited with being the first writer to insert an anthropological slant into a body of work. In addition to his science fiction, Oliver wrote three western novels, two of which won awards from the Western Writers of America.

Chad Oliver taught anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin from the early 1960s through 1992 and received awards for teaching excellence in 1980, 1982, and 1989. A liberal arts scholarship bears his name at the University of Texas at Austin. Chad Oliver died on August 15, 1993, in Austin, Texas. He is survived by his wife, Betty Jane (Beje), and two children, Kim and Glenn.