I am an award-winning journalist, photographer, and newspaper editor, raised in the Palo Pinto Mountain country of North Central Texas, the "Cradle of the Cattle Industry."  I have written both fiction and non-fiction, and been published nationally as well as a contributing writer and photographer for the Associated Press. I've been fortunate to include interviews with such notables as actor/artist Buck Taylor, famed business woman Alice Walton and computer pioneer Bob Beemer.  I am currently the managing editor of a weekly newspaper in North Central Texas - The Lake Country Sun.   I have also published The Golden Amulet, a western novel with “a twist,” that was influenced by a number of diverse, and perhaps, contradictory elements. Everything from the Peru symbols to the death of JFK.   I am a retired 20-year Army career veteran and was a bomb disposal and munitions technician and was fortunate to work with the United States Secret Service on presidential and VIP protective service details.  I guess the influence for writing westerns has been two-fold. The richness of a time when a person lived by his wits and his sense of justice dictated his actions. The other was a love of the West from the beginning - watching the Saturday morning TV shows and using my imagination later to reenact those scenes. 

30 or 40 awards from Texas Press Association, North and East Texas Press Association and West Texas Press Association for news writing, editorials, feature writing, photography and general excellence in journalism.