The Author
Richard lived the part of Richard in The Red Scarf growing up on a small farm in South Arkansas. His childhood days were spent roaming through the woods and up and down the creeks outside of his home town of Norphlet. For several years Richard was the Norphlet paperboy, delivering the El Dorado Daily News, The Arkansas Gazette, and The Shreveport Times. Many of the incidents in the novel are based on the antics of Richard and his friends.
After Richard graduated from Norphlet High School he enrolled at the University of Arkansas and graduated with a BS-MS degree in geology. His first job was with Exxon on the famous King Ranch in South Texas. Two years later he transferred to Benghazi, Libya to work for Esso Libya and spent the next two years working as a well-site geologist in the Libyan Sahara Desert. When he finished his tour in Libya, he transferred back to Corpus Christi, Texas, still working for Exxon, but three years later he quit to become an independent consulting geologist. Shortly after quitting Exxon, he and Joseph Baria formed Gibraltar Energy Company and Richard moved from South Texas back home to South Arkansas. After his partner retired in 1977 Richard became the sole owner of Gibraltar, which operates as an independent exploration company and drills for natural gas in north Mississippi and Alabama.
Richard is an avid conservationist, a three-time president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation. He led a two-state effort to prevent the Corps of Engineers from making a series of bend cuts on the Ouachita River. Richard won the “Don’t ditch our river,” fight and today the river still runs free.
He is an avid collector of antique maps of the south and southwest. His collection has been on display numerous times, and it is considered one of the top collections in the south.
Richard’s other primary interests have to do with historic preservation. Together, with his wife Vertis, they have restored 17 commercial buildings in downtown El Dorado, Arkansas and have received numerous awards, including the state’s top award, the prestigious Parker Westbrook Award. Richard has planted over 1000 trees in the downtown area and has added numerous park benches, planters, and other landscaping items to the area. Downtown El Dorado has been called the most beautiful downtown in the mid-south, and it has been recognized nationally as one of the top 5 downtowns in the nation.
Richard has been writing since his time in Libya, when, with nothing but time on his hands, he spent hours in a hot trailer, writing in longhand his first novel. Since that time he has written numerous guest columns in various papers, and while president of the Wildlife Federation he authored The President’s Column. For several years, after stepping down as president of the Wildlife Federation, he wrote a statewide column, “Natural Solutions.” The Red Scarf is Richard’s debut novel, but other writings, including the sequel to The Red Scarf, are in the works.
