Eldest daughter of William Cruse McMurrey, subject of the William Cruse McMurrey Collection
A. A. (Al) Jackson IV is a long-time fan and sometimes writer of science fiction. He has been an employee of NASA in Houston for many years. He has been active in the fan community of Texas for decades.
Andrew Douglas Jackson was born in Crenshaw County, Alabama on October 11, 1875. In his early career, Andrew Douglas Jackson was a bookeeper, teacher, and newspaper editor. As an editor, he promoted the Reclamation Amendment in 1917 that was used to create the Brazos River Reclamation and Conservation District. He was later hired as a staff member of the Texas Agricultural Experimental Station starting in 1920. In 1929, he worked on various committees for the Brazos River Reclamation and Conservation District until his death in 1947. [for more information, see biography in this archival collection, box 1, folder 1]
Carl F. Jaedicke earned a BS in Nuclear Engineering with honors at Texas A&M in 1973 and later received his MBA from Indiana University in 1979. He returned to Texas A&M and served 19 years as the development officer for the College of Engineering at the Texas A&M Foundation in 1986. Jaedike was also the director of development for the College of Engineering for the Foundation, and in 1996 helped organize a fundraising campaign that raised over 367 million for the university as part of “Capturing the Spirit” campaign. He retired from his role at the foundation Foundation in December 2017.
Arne Arthur Jakkula was born in Michigan in March 1904. He graduated in 1926 from the University of Michigan and later received a BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering. He worked on various Minnesota highway projects as well as the Westinghouse Electric Company. In 1937 Jakkula joined the teaching staff at Texas A&M College as a specialist in structural engineering. He worked for both the Texas Engineering Experiment Station and the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads. Jakkula was named in 1942 as a member of the Advisory Board of Public Roads Administration to investigate suspension bridges following a collapse of the Tacoma Narrow Bridge in WA. He was serving as chairman of the Committee on Interpretation and Analysis for the Board at the time of his death.
Dr. Jakkula was the first executive director of the A&M Research Foundation. He established a reputation in the field of Oceanography by raising funds for oceanographic research in the Gulf of Mexico. He was a member of many honor societies and was married to Martha Danner. He died on May 30, 1953.
Richard is an author, interpreter, translator and student of science fiction. He resides in Poland.
Kevin Wayne Jeter was born on March 26, 1950, in Los Angeles, CA. As a student at the University of California, Fullerton, Jeter became acquainted with Science Fiction authors James Blaylock, Tim Powers, and most notably, Philip K. Dick. Dick was a major influence on Jeter, who, like Dick, writes much about subjective interpretations of reality and whose work has similar themes of paranoia.
He published his first novel, Seeklight, in 1975. However, his first novel actually written (though unpublished until 1984) was Dr. Adder, which he wrote in 1972. The book takes place in a future proto-cyberpunk Los Angeles and is noted for its extremely violent and graphic sexual content.
Jeter's first major novel was Morlock Night (1979), a sequel to H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. In a 1987 letter to Locus, Jeter said of this novel and of similar works by Blaylock and Powers: "Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term . . . like "steampunks", perhaps..." Jeter is thus credited with coining the term steampunk. He published two additional steampunk novels, Infernal Devices (1987) and the sequel Fiendish Schemes (2013).
Jeter has written nearly 30 novels, including three set in the Star Wars Expanded Universe and three authorized sequels to the 1982 film Blade Runner, as well as novels set in the Star Trek and Alien Nation universes. He has also written a number of short stories.
The Johnson County War, also known as the War on Powder Creek, was a range war between large cattle ranchers and small ranchers in northern Wyoming in April 1892. Johnson County is located at the confluence of the three forks of the Powder Creek. The county was ideal for raising cattle, and by 1880, the cattle rush in Wyoming had begun. But an overstocked range, low beef prices, and the disastrous winter of 1886-1887 forced many cowboys to become homesteaders and to maintain small herds. The increasing number of small ranchers alarmed the big cattlemen of the region and they used their influence to gain passage of the Maverick Law of 1884. The law made it illegal to brand a maverick (cattle, regardless of age, found roaming the open range without a mother and without a brand) except under orders of the foreman of each roundup district. Another provision of the law required high bonds for bidding on mavericks. This made it difficult for small ranchers to start or enlarge their own herds. To the disappointment of big cattlemen, the Maverick Law did not stop the illegal branding of mavericks.
Prior to the 1892, cattlemen punished individuals they suspected of being rustlers and cattle thieves. But in 1891, several large ranchers, many of whom were influential members of the Wyoming Stock Growers (WSGA) Association, decided to rid themselves once and for all of these individuals they believed threatened the prosperity of the cattle industry. The plan was to use armed force and kill or drive the rustlers from the state. All of the participants in the group were to take the train from Cheyenne to Casper, Wyoming. From there, the invaders would march to Buffalo, take control of the courthouse and the weapons stored there, and then mete out "severe treatment" to those they deemed deserving of it. They had a "death" list of these individuals, which varied in number from nineteen to seventy according to different accounts. The cattlemen, supported by powerful political leaders, were convinced that they would face no opposition to their cause and that the good citizens of Johnson County would rise up and join them in ridding society of these troublemakers. They sent representatives to recruit gunfighters from Paris, Lamar County, Texas and Idaho. Their efforts resulted in twenty-two Texans and George Dunning from Idaho joining the invasion party as it was later called. The hired guns were told that they would be serving warrants to known rustlers and other dangerous outlaws.
The invasion began on April 5, 1892. A large party of cattlemen, including the owners, superintendents, and foremen of six large Johnson County cattle outfits, five stock detectives including Frank M. Canton, 23 gunfighters and their commander Major Frank Wolcott, and surgeon Dr. Charles Penrose set out from Cheyenne on the afternoon train. Sam T. Clover of the Chicago Herald and Ed Towse of the Cheyenne Sun also joined the group. The cattlemen and their hired guns arrived in Casper the next morning, loaded their wagons, and began the march to Buffalo. They stopped at the Tisdale ranch where two more men were added to the party. It was at this ranch that the invaders received news that fourteen rustlers were at the K.C. ranch approximately eighteen miles north of the Tisdale ranch. The cattlemen decided to deviate from their plan and rode to the K.C. ranch. The delay would prove costly.
When the invaders arrived at the K.C., they discovered that only four men occupied the small cabin on the ranch: Nate Champion, Rueben "Nick" Ray, and two innocent trappers. One trapper left the cabin headed for the barn for some water. The invaders promptly captured him. After some time, the second trapper exited the cabin looking for his partner and was also captured. Champion and Ray surmised that something was amiss. Champion warned Ray before he set out in search of the missing trappers. Before Ray could walk into the yard, the invaders opened fire. Champion was able to pull his body back into the cabin but Ray died from the injuries he sustained an hour later. The cattlemen laid siege to the cabin, and eventually forced Champion out by setting fire to it. During the siege, Jack Flagg, a suspected rustler, and his stepson Alonzo Taylor unwittingly crossed the firing zone. They were able to escape after the gunfighters gave them chase. Their escape was significant because Flagg and Taylor were able to warn the people of Buffalo of the group of armed men hunting rustlers and small ranchers.
After the encounter at the K.C. ranch, the invaders pointed their horses toward Buffalo. The party was less than ten miles from the town when their friend and fellow cattleman James Craig urged them not to go to Buffalo. Because of Jack Flagg's tales of his run-in with the invaders, the townspeople knew of the cattlemen's impending arrival and believed that the armed group was after innocent ranchers, not dishonest rustlers. Despite the invaders' belief that their actions were just and would meet with general approbation, the people did not rally behind their cause. The invaders decided to retreat to the T.A. ranch, thirteen miles from Buffalo. Within a day, Sheriff Angus of Buffalo and several small ranchers surrounded the ranch. More men joined their ranks as they laid siege to the ranch. The standoff lasted for two days. Early on the morning of April 13th the standoff came an end when Troops H, C, and D of the 6th Cavalry under Major Fechet, with Colonel Van Horn in command accepted the surrender of the cattlemen. After the machinations of powerful friends of the invaders including both Wyoming senators and the acting governor, President Benjamin Harrison ordered the troops to intervene. Charges were brought against many of those who participated in the invasion. However, in the end, none of the invaders of Johnson County War were convicted.
Don L. Jones was born in Wisconsin, IL. He came to Texas in 1917 to study condensed milk at a plant in West Texas. Jones decided to move to Lubbock, where he worked at the Texas Agricultural Extension Service (TEES) substation with a grain sorghum breeder, R. E. Karper from 1917-1927. He briefly became superintendent of the Chillicothe Substation, then returned to Lubbock as superintendent for the TEES in 1928.
During the 1920s, Jones changed his research focus to cotton during a cotton shortage in Texas and became one of the leading cotton breeding experts in the nation. Jones later became the head of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station (Number 8, part of Texas A&M University System, known as TAEX) in Lubbock, Texas from 1928-1960. He received an honorary doctorate in agriculture at Texas A&M College in 1960, for his 42 years working with the Agricultural Extension Service and Experimental Station.
Jindrich (Henry) Juren was born in Cermna, Bohemia on March 20, 1850. The son of Antonia (Kosut) and Reverend Cenek Juren, the minister at the local Evangelical Brethren Unity Church. After receiving his primary education through the public schools in and around the Cermna area, Jindrich served twelve months of compulsory military training in the Austrian army. From there, following in his father's ministerial footsteps, Jindrich became fluent in Czech, English, German, French, and Polish while he studied theology at several universities in Bonn, Germany, Edinburgh, Scotland, and Basel, Switzerland where he completed his seminary studies.
At the age of 26, while still residing in Europe as a theological student, Jindrich Juren was recommended by Rev. Ludwig Chlumsky to serve as the pastor for the Ross Praire Czech-Moravian Brethren Church in Texas. He accepted the call, arriving in Ross Prairie in early 1876, and shortly after in April of the same year, Jindrich was ordained in the new Brethern Church. In December 1876, Rev. Juren married Frantiska (Frances) Schiller of Industry, Texas.
Rev. Juren served not only the local congregation but was left to alone serve all members of the Unity of the Brethren in Texas when Rev. Chlumsky returned to Moravia around 1880. From 1881-1888, Rev. Juren traveled by horse and buggy, or train to surrounding congregations to provide services in or near Caldwell, Granger, Hallettsville, Industry, Shiner, Smithville, Taylor, Temple, Wallis, Wesley, West, and other Central Texas Communities. Alongside his ministerial duties, he was a public school teacher for 40 years while living between Fayetteville, Wesley, and Industry. However, Rev. Juren stayed in Fayetteville, Texas for a total of 32 years and provided a solid 45 years as resident pastor for his congregation in Ross Prairie.
Rev. Juren had a total of fourteen children, twelve living into adulthood, with his wife Frantiska before her passing on February 10, 1906. In 1911, Rev. Juren married widow Anna Jubin Mikeska with whom he had 3 children, two of which died in infancy.
Rev. Jindrich Juren died at St. Joseph's Hospital in Houston, Texas of esophageal cancer on May 2, 1921. He was buried in the Czech-Moravian Brethren Evangelical Cemetery at Ross Prairie, now known as the Fayetteville Brethren Cemetery. Also buried in the cemetery are Rev. Juren's first wife Frantiska and his second wife Anna who passed on April 5, 1965. The cemetery also contains the Rev. Jindrich Juren historical marker.
Reverend Jindirch Juren, A Dedicated Circuit MInister by Carolyn Heinsohn
Don Kelly was born September 22, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in Illinois and attended college for his undergraduate degree at The University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the university in 1962. Kelly then joined the United States Air Force and was stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas. After serving as an officer for three years, Kelly attended the University of Kansas and received a Master’s Degree in Public Administration in 1967. He also studied Urban Studies at The University of Texas and Texas Christian University.
After completing his thorough education, Kelly began serving the public by becoming Assistant City Manager of Victoria, Texas, as well as serving as director of regional services. In 1970, Kelly landed the job as the first Executive Director of South East Texas Regional Planning Commission (SETRPC) where he united the southeastern region of Texas.
While working this job, he also was either president or on the board of over 40 different civic and social organizations. He was appointed staff of the first North Texas Council of Governments and was the only member who attended all 34 meetings. Kelly also served as Chairman of the Beaumont Mayor’s Committee for the Employment of People with Disabilities for 15 years, was the founding member of the Triangle AIDS Network, was on the board of the Mental Health Association for 26 years, and served as president of the Southeast Texas Arts Council and the Texas Association of Arts Council. Being a huge, diehard baseball fan, he even had the opportunity to co-host a sports trivia radio program for 17 years alongside Dave Hofferth. Kelly also had the honor of serving as the Olympic Torchbearer for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.
After serving the public for over 36 years, Don Kelly retired from SETRPC in 2000. Upon retirement, Kelly traveled around the world and settled down in Houston, Texas where he began to create and donate a variety of different collections. He donated and started the Don Kelly Research Collection of Gay Literature and Culture and Fellowship at Texas A&M University which consists of many rare books and materials. Kelly still donates and adds to the collection today.
Born March 6, 1884 in Bucyrus, Ohio, but lured out West as a youth, Harold Osman Kelly (1884-1955) traveled a long, hard road before turning his hand to painting as a means of support. Kelly's father was a Lancaster County, Pennsylvaniarailroader and his mother an Ohio born German. In Kelly's own words he loved animals and felt a desire to work with them from his earliest years, leaving school at 16 to work in stables around his home. H.O. Kelly's great American dream, however, was to own Western land and raise fine stock, particularly horses. For nearly 40 years of his life he worked in thirty states as a muleskinner, farmer, logger, bull-whacker, mill hand, sheepherder, freighter, and rancher. With the help of family, H.O. and his wife Jessie, whom he met and married in Arkansas, finally bought a farm in the Texas Panhandle in 1921. By 1939, however, the Dust Bowl swirled H.O. Kelly's dream into a bank foreclosure. Health broken after years of hard outdoor work, Kelly and his wife settled in Blanket, Texas, where he turned more and more to his painting, first with watercolors, then in oils by 1947, not only to occupy his mind and time, but to provide a modest supplementary means of support for himself and Jessie. His first one-man show was held at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in 1950 at the invitation of Jerry Bywaters, the museum director and Kelly's early champion. Kelly died in Blanket, Texas December 12, 1955.
Elmer Kelton was born in Crane, Texas, in 1926. His father was the ranch foreman for the McElroy Ranch, where Kelton grew up. His mother was a schoolteacher, who taught him to read at the age of 5 or 6. He grew up around ranchers, ranchhands, bronc busters, and cowboys, and first started writing when he was 8 or 10 years old. He has said he always knew he wanted to be a fiction writer.
Encouraged by his high school English teacher at Crane High School, he attended the University of Texas, where he attended classes for 2 years before seeing combat infantry service in Europe during World War II. After the war, he returned to Texas with his Austrian-born wife, Anna, and returned to classes. He graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in journalism in 1948.
Kelton then got a job with the San Angelo Standard-Times as a farm and ranch writer. Later on, he became the agricultural editor, and after 15 years at the newspaper, he left to become editor of Sheep and Goat Raiser Magazine. He then went on to be associate editor of Livestock Weekly, a job he kept until 1990 when he retired. Throughout that time period, however, Kelton also wrote Western novels, selling his first stories to pulp magazines. He published his first novel in 1955, Hot Iron.
Since then, he has written roughly 40 novels, usually set in 19th Century Texas, based on stories he heard growing up around cowboys as a kid. Other novels have been based on historical events; his novel The Time It Never Rained, published in 1973, is based on a 7-year drought that occurred in Texas in the 1950s. Kelton's novels have won him seven Spur Awards, four Western Heritage Awards, and international acclaim. He is often praised for his characterization (while most people make their cowboys '7 feet tall and invincible', Kelton's are '5 foot 9 and nervous'), and his novels' abilities to capture the feel of West Texas as a region and a culture.
Western Writers of America have twice proclaimed him the most popular western writer of all time, ahead of Zane Grey, Willa Cather, Louis L'Amour and Pulitzer Prize winner Larry McMurtry. The Time It Never Rained has also won great praise, two major awards, and has been declared by John Tuska to be "one of the dozen or so best novels written by an American (in the 20th Century)". In 2003, San Angelo honored their most famous resident with a monument along the Concho River, near the art museum. Rather than a bust or statue of Kelton, it is instead a silhouette sculpture of a buffalo bull, cow, and calf grazing near a dry water hole.
Kelton lives in San Angelo, Texas with his wife, Anna. They have three grown children; Gary, Steven and Kathy.
Jeffe (Jennifer Mize) Kennedy (August 22, 1966) is a noted and notable writer of fantasy and erotic romance. An author of novels, short stories, poetry, and non-fiction, Kennedy has been writing steadily for many years. Her first book was a book of non-fiction essays, Wyoming Trucks, True Love, and The Weather Channel (2004), describing her family, her upbringing, and her life in Wyoming. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award.
Her first published work of fiction was the 2010 novel Petals & Thorns, an erotic reworking of the Beauty & The Beast story originally published under the pen name "Jennifer Paris". Since then she has written a number of fantasy romance series, including the Covenant of Thorns trilogy (2012-2014), Sorcerous Moons (2016-), She has also written several series of more conventional romance, including Facets of Passion (2011-2013) , Falling Under (2014-2016), and Missed Connections (2017-) as well as a number of erotic vampire tales.
Kennedy's most famous series is her award-winning fantasy romance trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms, which was published in 2014 and 2015. The series tells the stories of three sisters, Princesses Ursula, Andromeda, and Amelia, who discover romance and adventure while uncovering the secrets of their birth and struggling against their increasingly unstable father King Uorsin. The first book, The Mark of the Tala, received a starred Library Journal review and was nominated for the Romantic Times Book of the Year; its sequel, The Tears of the Rose, received a Top Pick Gold and was nominated for the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2014. The third book, The Talon of the Hawk, won that same award for 2015. In 2015, Kennedy began publishing the spinoff Twelve Kingdoms series The Uncharted Realms. The first book, The Pages of the Mind, was nominated for the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2016 and won the 2017 RITA Award for Paranormal Romance. The second book in the series, released in late 2016, was The Edge of the Blade. Five additional Forgotten Empires novels followed before Kennedy brought the sweeping Tala saga to a conclusion in February 2020 with the publication of The Fate of the Tala.
She has recently completed a new fantasy series - The Forgotten Empires, which began in 2019 with the publication of The Orchid Throne and continued through The Fiery Crown (2020) and The Promised Queen (2021). A prolific writer, Kennedy has begun several new series: the 4-volume (to date) Heirs of Magic series (2021-2022) and Bonds of Magic (3 books to date, 2021-2022).
Kennedy currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She served as the President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) from 2021-2023.
Jack Thurston Kent joined the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas faculty in 1936 as an instructor of mathematics and astronomy. In 1952 he was promoted to Associate Professor. Kent received his A.B. from Lambuth College in Jackson, Tennessee in 1930 and his M.A. from the University of Arkansas in 1931. While at Texas A & M, Kent was head of the Moonwatch team during the International Geophysical Year of 1959. This team was cited for its achievements in spotting artificial satellites. Kent received the Ford Foundation Fellowship in 1951. He also received the Outstanding Achievement Award given by the alumni of Lambuth College in 1960. Kent traveled throughout Texas as a visiting instructor for the National Science Foundation and Texas Academy of Science. He retired from Texas A & M in 1975 as an Associate Professor.
Jack Thurston Kent joined the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas faculty in 1936 as an instructor of mathematics and astronomy. In 1952 he was promoted to Associate Professor. Kent received his A.B. from Lambuth College in Jackson, Tennessee in 1930 and his M.A. from the University of Arkansas in 1931. While at Texas A & M, Kent was head of the Moonwatch team during the International Geophysical Year of 1959. This team was cited for its achievements in spotting artificial satellites. Kent received the Ford Foundation Fellowship in 1951. He also received the Outstanding Achievement Award given by the alumni of Lambuth College in 1960. Kent traveled throughout Texas as a visiting instructor for the National Science Foundation and Texas Academy of Science. He retired from Texas A & M in 1975 as an Associate Professor. The Jack T. Kent Radio Scripts (1945-1950) consist of one five-inch box (.5 linear ft.) containing sixteen legal size file folders. The folders contain manuscripts of radio lectures on mathematics, mathematicians and the solar system by Jack T. Kent, Albert Edward Finlay, W. E. Ross, Roger Valentine McGee, Walter Lee Porter, and James Wendell Ross which were aired on radio station 1620 WTAW-AM in College Station, Tex. between 1945 and 1950.
Kay Kenyon is the author of over a dozen acclaimed novels of science fiction and fantasy, as well as numerous works of shorter fiction. She published her first novel, the time travel adventure The Seeds of Time, in 1997. Leap Point followed in 1998, and the space opera Rift in 1999. Her 2001 novel Tropic of Creation was a preliminary nominee for the 2001 Endeavour Award. Kenyon's next works were two loosely-connected SF novels: Maximum Ice (2002) and The Braided World (2003). Maximum Ice was nominated for the 2003 Philip K. Dick Award; Braided World for the 2004 John W. Campbell Memorial Award.
From 2007-2010 Kenyon produced the 4-book vast fantastical epic The Entire And The Rose, set within The Entire, a five-armed radial universe that exists in a dimension without stars and planets and is parallel to our own universe. Each of the first three books in the series - Bright of the Sky (2007), A World Too Near (2008), and City Without End (2009) - was nominated for the Endeavour Award. To date, her other major series has been the Dark Talents series (2017-2019), a fantasy series that takes place in the years immediately before World War II and tells the story of a war of magical espionage between Great Britain and Nazi Germany.
Kenyon was born in 1956 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She currently resides in Wenatchee, Washington.
Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India in 1865 to English parents. He was educated in England, but returned to India in 1882, where he worked for Anglo-Indian newspapers and began his literary career, chiefly as a writer of short stories. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907. Rudyard Kipling died in 1936.
K'Kathy is the pseudonym of a writer of slash fanfiction, who began her career writing slash from the Highlander: The Series media universe. She is also a former convention organizer for BASCon, a slash fan con that operated in San Francisco from 2001-2011.
Benjamin Kolinsky, of Fort Lee, New Jersey, was a kindhearted man, and a longtime fan of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, particularly the legendary character Tarzan. Over the course of many decades, Kolinsky, an assiduous collector, assembled a collection of editions of Burroughs' Tarzan books, Tarzan audiovisual media, and a wide variety of interesting Tarzan memorabilia and ephemera. He donated his collection to Cushing Memorial Library & Archives in late 2022.
Benjamin Kolinsky passed away in January 2023, beloved by his family.
Walter Krueger (1881-1967), General in the United States Army and commander of the 6th Army during World War II, military educator, historian and scholar, was born in Flatow, West Prussia (now Zlotow, Poland) 26 January 1881, the son of Julius O. H. Krueger and Anne (Hasse) Krueger. At the age of eight Krueger moved with his family to the United States. He attended Cincinnati Technical School (1896-1898) in Ohio, a preparatory school for technical disciplines such as engineering. Krueger later received further education at various military schools and colleges, where he also often served as instructor or professor. He was the author or translater of several books on military history and tactics.
Krueger's military career began when he enlisted (1898) as a volunteer in the Spanish-American War. After service in Cuba, Krueger enlisted in the United States regular Army as a private. In 1901 he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the 30th Infanty, having served in the Philippines. Krueger graduated from the Infantry-Cavalry School (1903) in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., then from the General Staff College (1907), also at Fort Leavenworth.
After another tour in the Philippines, followed by service in Mexico (1916) with General John J. Pershing, Krueger transferred to France (1918) during World War I, to act as Assistant Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army Infantry, 26th Division. Krueger later served with the 84th Infantry Division, and served as Assistant Chief of Staff with the Tank Corps.
Krueger graduated from the Army War College (1921), remaining as an instructor. In 1926 he graduated from the Naval War College, also teaching there from 1928 to 1932. By 1941, and the entry of the United States into World War II, Krueger had been promoted to temporary Lieutenant General commanding the United States Army, 3rd Army, with headquarters in San Antonio, Tex..
In 1943 Krueger assumed command of the United States Army, 6th Army, headquartered in Australia, at the personal request of General Douglas MacArthur. Krueger was promoted to full General (1945) after two years of fighting, in which the 6th Army under General Krueger was the principle striking force in the Southwest Pacific Area. Sixth Army thus played a major part in the most extensive series of amphibious operations in the history of the world.
In 1946 6th Army was deactivated and Krueger retired, making San Antonio, Tex. his permanent residence.
Krueger was married to Grace Aileen Norvell 11 September 1904, and the couple had three children. He died 20 August 1967 in Valley Forge, Penn., and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Edwin Jackson Kyle was born in Kyle, Tex., 22 July 1876, the son of Fergus Kyle and Annie E. Moore Kyle. E. J. Kyle graduated in 1899 with a B. S. in agriculture from Texas A & M College (later Texas A & M University), and, in 1902 he received an M. S. in agriculture from Cornell University.
Upon graduation from Cornell University in June 1902, E. J. Kyle returned to Texas A & M College as an instructor in Horticulture. In 1905 Kyle was promoted to Head of the Department and made full professor. Then, in 1911, when Texas A & M College created the School of AgricultureE. J. Kyle was appointed Dean of the School of Agriculture.
During this time, Kyle also served as President of the Texas A & M College Athletic Association, resigning in 1911 when he made Dean of the School of Agriculture. Kyle was then called back to the post of President of the Athletic Association, after Bruce LaRoche retired on account of unrest among the former students. Kyle did not retire again from serving with the Athletic Association until 1934, was called back briefly to use his diplomatic skills again, and finally left the post for good in 1943, after the Aggies became National Champions , winning three successive bowl games. Due to Kyle's accomplishments leading the Academic Association, Kyle Field was named after him.
Not only was E. J. Kyle accomplished as a leader of the Texas A & M College Athletic Association, but, in his own field of Agriculture, founded and was the head of the Farmer's Short Course for several years. Smith-Hughes Day at Texas A & M College was also supported by Kyle, and he was successful in getting legislature through to increase the amount of land owned by A & M College . As an educator, E. J. Kyle was the senior author of a text book for public schools, and he also co-wrote a book on pecan cultures with H. P. Stukey titled Pecan-growing ( New York : Macmillan,1925).
After retiring from Texas A & M College, E. J. Kyle was elected Dean Emeritus. Although Kyle had retired, President Roosevelt appointed him as ambassador to Guatemala. This area of the world was not new to E. J. Kyle because he had been there before with his activities in Inter-American Education. E. J. Kyle was the only man in the history of the United States trained in technical agriculture and education to be appointed an Ambassador. E. J. Kyle was so successful in Guatemala that upon leaving he received that country's highest decoration "The Order of the Quetzal".
Along with the rest of E. J. Kyle's honors are that he was in Who's Who, Who's Who for American Authors, Who's Who for American Men of Science, Who's Who in Latin America, Biographical Encyclopedia of the World, Leaders in Education, Who's Who in American Education, Who's Who in the South and Southwest, International Who's Who, and Who's Who in Federal Administration.
On 21 Dec. 1904, Kyle had married Alice Myers and they had one daughter. After many years of service to Texas A & M College, E. J. Kyle died 26 December 1963.
The La Villita Chapter National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) began organizing meetings in October of 1944, and was officially confirmed as an NSDAR Chapter in College Station, Texas on December 4, 1944.
David E. Lamb studied agriculture at Texas A&M and had a long career as a painter and writer.
Francis Towner Laney was a noted fan and fanzine publisher in Los Angeles in the mid-20th century. His best-known fanzine was The Acolyte, which ran from 1942-1946. Other fanzines of his included Fan-Dango (1943-1947), Wild Hair, and Shangri L'Affaires. Laney was active in the Fantasy Amateur Press Association, the Order of Dagon (which he co-founded), and the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society.
In 1948 he produced his memoir of fannish life, Ah! Sweet Idiocy!.
Laney was posthumously nominated in 1996 for the 1945 Best Fan Writer Retro Hugo Award.
Michael Lee Lanning is a retired U.S. Army liuetenant colonel and author, specializing in military non-fiction. As of 2015 Lee has written nineteen books and co-authored an additional two. The majority of his books have focused on military subjects, has recently added sports, health, and biographical reporting to his list of publications.
Lanning was born on September 18, 1946 to James Maurice and Alice Coskey Lanning in Sweetwater, Texas. Upon graduating from Trent High School in Trent, Texas in 1964, Lanning entered Texas A&M Universtiy. Lee was a member of the Corps of Cadets in Company D-1 (Spider D). During his junior year he was a featured writer for _The Agriculturalist,_a publication of technical information concerning agriculture. Lee married has wife Linda on December 20, 1967. As a senior he served on the 1st Battalion staff as the Scholastic/Guidence Officer. Lee graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Science degree.
Lanning was commissioned in to the U.S. Army after graduating from Texas A&M as a second lieutenant and reported to Ft. Benning in Georgia for infantry, airborne, and ranger training. He then transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina where he became a platoon leader of a rifle company. Lanning depolyed to Vietnam in April of 1969 with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. He served as an infantry platoon leader with C Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry for five months followed by a month as the leader of the Battalion's E Company Reconnaissance Platoon. After only six months in the war zone and less than 17 months in the Army Lee would be promoted to take command of Bravo Company. Lanning's tour lasted another six months before he rotated back to the United States.
Lee served only one tour of duty in Vietnam as U.S. started to reduce troops in the country and the turning of the war over to the AVRN. Over the next few years Lee and his wife would be moved around the United States as part of his service. In 1974 Lanning was given command of another infantry company, this time in Germany. During his time in the United States and Germany he served as an instructor in the U.S. Army Ranger School, a mechanized infantry company commander with the 3td Infantry Division, and executive officer of an infantry battalion in the 1st Calvalry Division. He would go on to serve in a non command capacity as the Public Affairs Officer for the 1st Cavalry Division and I Corps, and the plans officer for the American Foreces Information Service.
While stationed at Ft. Lewis, Washington Lee began writing a column for the _Fort Lewis Ranger,_the base newspaper, called "From the Lee Side" by Michael Lee. Also as Public Affairs Officer he also in overall charge of the paper. It was an experience during this time that led him to beginning his first book The Only War We Had: A Plattoon's Leaders Journal of Vietnam.
In 1988 Lanning retired from the U.S. Army as a Liuetenant Colonel to pursure his writing full time. His writings would focus on subjects he knew well, the military.
Joe Richard Harold Lansdale was born on October 28, 1951, in Gladewater Texas. After a variety of work experience, he became a free-lance writer in 1981, after publishing his first novel in 1980. Lansdale notes his first publication was in 1974, written in 1973.
Lansdale writes horror, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and suspense, often intermixing genre elements in a single work. His stated preference is the fantastic, most often presented in a darker vein. As a sideline, Lansdale teaches a version of the martial arts he developed. Lansdale has written extensively in the short fiction field, in all genres, and often under pseudonyms he did not record.
Joe Richard Lansdale's long and multifaceted literary career began in 1980, with the publication of his short story "The Princess". From that small seed has grown a legendary body of work, ranging from horror to Western to crime to mystery to suspense to science fiction, and which includes novels, short stories, comic books, and screenplays. Lansdale has written over 25 novels and hundreds of short stories (collected into nearly 30 different story collections), several of which have been adapted for film and television. His work is noted for his frequent use of humor and deeply absurd (while still dark and violent) situations and characters.
Among his most famous genre works are the novellas "On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks" (1989, winner of the 1989 British Fantasy Award and a 1989 Bram Stoker Award) and "Bubba Ho-Tep" (1994, chronicling a battle fought between Elvis Presley and a mummy), the Drive-In series (1988-2005), and the "Ned The Seal" trilogy (2001-2010). Lansdale's most famous crime fiction includes the Hap & Leonard series of mysteries (11 novels as of 2018, and several novellas and stories), which tell the adventures of two mismatched friends and amateur detectives, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. The series, like much of Lansdale's work, is set in his home territory of East Texas. Other non-SF/non-horror works of Lansdale of note include The Bottoms (2000), The Thicket (2013), and Paradise Sky (2015).
Lansdale has written a number of works for the comic book industry as well, most notably in the Weird West subgenre, including stories about the bounty hunter Jonah Hex. He has written several novels and stories about Batman, and episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series.
Several of Lansdale's works have been adapted into film and television, including the Sundance series Hap & Leonard (2016-2018), "Incident On and Off A Mountain Road" (for the television series Masters of Horror (2005), and the films Bubba Ho-Tep (2002, starring Bruce Campbell), the zombie film Christmas For The Dead (2012, co-starring and featuring music from Lansdale's daughter and sometimes co-author Kasey), and the crime drama Cold in July (2014, starring Michael C. Hall and Sam Shepard).
Lansdale has won numerous awards for his body of work, including 10 Bram Stoker Awards, an International Horror Guild Award, the British Fantasy Award, the 2001 Edgar Award, the 2007 World Horror Convention Grand Master Award, the 2015 Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2016 Spur Award for Best Historical Western Novel, and the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame in 2012. He has been nominated for 8 additional Stoker Awards, 6 World Fantasy Awards, and multiple Locus Awards.
Lansdale now resides in Nacogdoches, TX with his wife Karen. They have two children: writer and musician Kasey Lansdale, and reporter and screenwriter Keith Lansdale.
The Las Moras Ranch (1879-1913) was located mainly in Menard County, Tex., but also included property in Comal, San Saba, Tom Green and Concho counties. The genesis of the Las Moras Ranch can be traced to about 1875, when a French immigrant, Ernest Carlin, purchased 30,000 acres of land at the head of the Las Moras Creek in Menard County, Tex., where he established a ranch, sometimes called King Carlin's Ranch. Unfortunately, Carlin's lavish lifestyle led to his loss of the property 21 Dec. 1879, when the property was forclosed upon by the Galveston, Tex. banking firm of Kaufmann and Runge.
Kaufmann and Runge was owned by Henry Runge (1816-1873), head of a prominent German family, several members of which had emmigrated to Texas in the 1840s. After Henry Runge's death, his oldest son, Henry J. Runge (1859-1922) took over running most of his father's businesses. Louis Hermann Runge (1861-1936), Henry J. Runge's youngest brother, and his family took over the Carlin property soon after the bank foreclosure, making Carlin's ill-fated mansion house the headquarters for the newly christened Las Moras Ranch. Other properties, also foreclosed upon by Kaufman and Runge, which had been the result of the financial failure of the German Emigration Company in 1847, were incorporated into the original Carlin property to enlarge the Las Moras Ranch.
The Verien zum Schutz deutscher Einwanderer, or Society for the Protection of German Immigrants, later known as the German Emigration Company was organized 20 April 1842 by a group of German noblemen at Biebrich on the Rhine, near Mainz, Ger. This group of noblemen called the Adelsverein, Mainzer Verein, or simply the Society of Noblemen, had as their goal the encouragement of mass German emigration to the United States, and in particular, to the vast and relatively cheap lands available in Texas, originally made available to emigrants by land grants from empresario agents of the Mexican government and, later, the Republic of Texas. New Braunfels, Tex., founded in 1845, and Fredericksburg, Tex., established in 1846, were two very successful results of the activities of the Adelsverein's Texas settlement endeavors.
About 1844, the Adelsverein had purchased the rights to a portion of a nearly three million acre grant first received from the Republic of Texas on 7 June 1842, then renewed 1 Sept. 1 1843, by Henry Francis Fisher, Burchard Miller and Joseph Baker. The rights to settle the land had been forfeited because of the would-be empresario's inabilty to fulfill their settlement scheme. This Fisher-Miller Grant, located about 100 miles west of Austin, Tex., was, at first, a very unfavorable location because of its intrusion into the Comanche tribe's camping and hunting ground. This particular problem was solved by a treaty between the Comanche tribe and the German settlers, concluded 9 May 1847 by Baron Ottfried Hans von Meusebach, who had been sent to Texas as the Adelsverein's Land Commissioner. Other areas of the lands purchased for German settlement by the Adelsverein, however, posed more serious problems to successful settlement, and were eventually abandoned to the mountains running through them, or the wastes which had defeated the settlers, many of whom either returned to Europe, or relocated to German towns such as Fredericksburg, Tex. or New Braunfels, Tex. Some members of the Runge family, for example, eventually returned to Hannover, Ger.
A close friend of Meusebach, Henry Runge (1816-1873), the son of an affluent landowner in Germany, trained for a commercial career and emigrated to the United States, arriving in New Orlean, La. in 1841. The success of the German Emigration Company in establishing German settlers in Texas drew Henry Runge to relocate to Indianola, Tex. in 1843, where he became an important merchant, then banker and financier. As a result of the Civil War, Henry Runge had to abandon his business concerns in Indianola, which included the Indianola Railroad Co., but he relocated to the predominantly GermanNew Braunfels, Tex., and founded a cotton factory. After the close of the Civil War, Henry Runge reclaimed his businesses in Indianola, Tex., and, by 1866, the Runge family moved to Galveston, Tex. In Galveston, as a partner in Kaufmann and Runge, with major interest in shipping, merchandising and banking, Henry Runge was one of the major creditors in the 1847 bankruptcy of the German Emigration Co. Properties seized as a result of this bankruptcy were added to the original properties forfeited by Ernest Carlin, to form the extensivie Las Moras Ranch, owned and run by members of the Runge family until the sale of the ranch properties was completed in 1913.
TheLas Moras Ranch was managed by Louis Hermann Runge (1861-1936), youngest brother of Henry J. Runge, from Sept. 1888 until 27 February 1897, when management of the ranch was assumed by Walter Tips (1841-1911), a German emigrant and Texas businessman who, after the death of Henry Runge, had formed the Las Moras Ranch Company on 21 December 1879, with his wife's aunt, Julia Runge, wife of Henry Runge, and Runge's sons Henry J. Runge, and Louis H. Runge. Tips was in charge of the Las Moras Ranch when liquidation was intitiated, though he died in 1911, and the ranch properties were not completely dispersed until 1913.