Author of over 40 novels, and published
over more than 50 years. Three of 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. Seven have won the Spur award
from
Western
Writers of America: BUFFALO WAGONS, THE DAY THE COWBOYS QUIT, THE TIME
IT NEVER RAINED, EYES OF THE HAWK, SLAUGHTER, THE FAR CANYON and THE WAY
OF THE COYOTE.
In 1987 he 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 he 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 also
received honorary doctorates from Hardin-Simmons University and Texas
Tech University. He was given a lifetime achievement award by the
National Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock, Texas.
Since 1996 Kelton has been an honorary member of the German Association
for the Study of the Western, headquartered in Münster, Germany. This
organization presents the Elmer Kelton Award for Literary Merit. Thus
far the award has been given to Matt Braun, Thomas Jeier, Werner J. Egli,
and scholar Birgit Hans of the University of North Dakota. More
information on the German Association for the Study of the Western can
be
found at
www.westernforschungszentrum.de.
Kelton is a native of Crane, Texas. He grew up on the McElroy Ranch,
with which his father, the late R. W. "Buck' Kelton, was associated for
36 years. After graduation from Crane High School he attended the
University of Texas at Austin in 1942-44 and 1946-48, earning a B.A.
degree in journalism. He spent 15 years as farm and ranch writer-editor
for the San Angelo Standard-Times, five years as editor of Sheep and
Goat Raiser Magazine and 22 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. He and his wife Ann, a native of Austria,
have been married over 50 years. They have two grown sons, a daughter,
four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
THE GOOD OLD BOYS was made into a 1995 TV movie starring Tommy Lee Jones
for the TNT cable network.
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