Tom Elkins ’53 has lived in Texas a little more than a decade, but to look at him, you would think the gray, sandy dirt, sagebrush, and scrubby trees that make up his small ranch have always been home to him. His face is just craggy enough now, his stride loping enough, and his sentences drawn out just far enough to persuade you he has always made his home on a piece of high ground just outside Kerrville, Texas. Elkins never has tried to be anything he’s not, so he’s not assuming the demeanor of a Texan; it seems to come quite naturally to him.
Elkins grew up just outside Crawfordsville, and when he entered Wabash as a member of the Class of 1953 he joined Kappa Sigma fraternity and concentrated on the writing assignments in his English classes, the part-time job he had working for Bob Harvey in the Wabash News Bureau and singing for Bob Mitchum H’59 in the Glee Club. Elkins maintained a correspondence with both men as long as they lived.
Student employees of the Wabash News Bureau researched and wrote most of the news releases about the College and the news bug bit Elkins so hard that he took a job at a radio station in Ft. Wayne after he graduated. It didn’t pay much more than the Wabash News Bureau, Elkins says, but it launched a career in broadcasting that took him across the Midwest and all the way to Maui, Hawaii, where he bought two radio stations and wrote editorials that caused corrupt politicians to tremble. In 1981 he was named best radio editorial writer by the National Broadcast Editorial Association, and in 1984 the same organization honored him as best radio editorial writer in the Western region of the United States. In 1989 he received from the NBEA its Management Award for his work at his two stations, an honor previously given to the top management of CBS and NBC.
Hawaii was beautiful, interesting, but far away from family on the mainland and very expensive, especially for a man looking toward retirement. He could have moved to any state in the Union, but Texas, as arid as Maui was lush, somehow seemed just right. He likes the climate and enjoys the independent nature of Texans, especially one Ed North, a Kerrville living legend who had just been fired from the sheriff’s office when Elkins first met him.
Elkins listened to enough of Ed North’s stories to know they begged to be turned into historical fiction for a wider audience. But it was difficult to pull the whole truth out of a taciturn man from the Texas Hill Country. Out there, men just do things; they don’t talk about them. All the years of radio interviews served Elkins well in persuading North to tell his whole story, which turned out to be the tale of several generations of a family of strong, independent men, the first of whom fought in the American Revolution.
The gaps in detail and sequence of so many generations of family lore sent Elkins scrambling to history books and the Internet. He spent a year researching the American Revolution, Civil War, the modern history of San Antonio, and oil production. Of the latter, he jokes: "The best thing I could find to understand the mechanics of drilling for oil was a children’s book that was written for 12-year-olds. It was just about my speed."
Now that North of Texas is actually available from Amazon and the publisher, PublishAmerica, North is "floating on air," reports Elkins; not bad for a man whose poor health was largely brought on by a hard life of tracking down law-breakers.
The history of Ed North and his family is the compelling story of the grit it took to shape this country, and it has the bonus of being told by a very good writer. Together North and Elkins take their readers on a lively romp through history.
If Robert Harvey were still here, he would be heading for the bookstore to pick up his copy.