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Elmer Kelton
2002 Honorary Alumnus |
Elmer Kelton, a native of Crane, Texas, grew up on the McElroy Ranch, with which his father, the late R. W. "Buck' Kelton, was associated for thirty-six years. After graduation from Crane High School, Kelton earned a B.A. degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. He spent fifteen years as farm and ranch writer-editor for the San Angelo Standard-Times, five years as editor of Sheep and Goat Raiser Magazine and twenty-two years as associate editor of Livestock Weekly, from which he retired in 1990. He served two years in the U. S. Army, 1944-46, including combat infantry service in Europe. Elmer Kelton has served has Adjunct Professor of English at Angelo State University.
Author of forty novels and published more than forty-two years, Kelton's novels have appeared in Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Four books have won the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City: "The Time It Never Rained," "The Good Old Boys," "The Man Who Rode Midnight," and the text for "The Art Of Howard Terpning."
The Western Writers of America have presented Kelton with an unprecedented seven Spur awards and in a recent survey voted him the Greatest Western Writer of All Time. Kelton won Spurs for "Buffalo Wagons," "The Day The Cowboys Quit," "The Time it Never Rained," "Eyes of The Hawk," "Slaughter and The Far Canyon," and "Way of the Coyote." The "Good Old Boys" was made into a 1995 TV movie starring Tommy Lee Jones for the TNT cable network.
In 1987, Kelton received the Barbara McCombs/Lon Tinkle Award for "continuing excellence in Texas letters" from the Texas Institute of Letters. In 1990, he received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association. The Texas Legislature proclaimed Elmer Kelton Day in April 1997. In 1998, Kelton received the first Lone Star award for lifetime Achievement from the Larry McMurtry Center for Arts and Humanities at Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, Texas. He was given a lifetime achievement award by the National Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock, Texas.
Kelton and his wife Ann, a native of Austria, celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary five years ago. They have two grown sons, a daughter, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
As profiled in the 2002 Fall Alumni Magazine.
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