Stan Paregien, Editor
Chief Thundercloud
(Deceased)
Chief Thundercloud was born as Victor Daniels on April 12, 1899. He was the original Tonto in the movies.See more information about him under the listing of Victor Daniels.
Chief Thundercloud died of stomach cancer on February 1, 1955 at Ventura, CA. He is buried in the Forest Lawn Cemetery ( Great Mausoleum, Fuschia Terrace, Corridor of Mercy, Crypt 7355) in Glendale, CA.
CLICK HERE to see photos of him, as well as his complete filmography.
Floyd Tillman
(Deceased)
Floyd Tillman, singer and composer, was born on Dec. 8, 1914 in Ryan, Oklahoma. The family moved to Post, Texas when he was three months old. He was reared there.
His career began when he played guitar and madolin in a trio with two of his brothers. He later worked in Houston with Adolph Hofner and Leon "Pappy" Selph's Blue ridge Playboys.
Floyd Tillman wrote "It Makes No Difference Now" with Leon Selph, then sold it to singer Jimmie Davis for $300. It took him 28 years to reacquiring the rights to that song.
Tilmann was the first country singer to accompany himself with an electric guitar. He wrote many of the songs he recorded. And he was one of the first composers in country music to hone in on two basic themes: drinking and infidelity. It paid off well for him, and led the way for later composers and entertainers such as Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams.
In 1944 he scored his first hit when "They Took The Stars Out Of Heaven" went No. 1. Later that year, he released the sentimental war-time ballads "Each Night At Nine" and "G.I. Blues."
Floyd Tillman left Decca and signed with Columbia records. His first major hit with them was "Driving Nails In My Coffin." In 1948, he scored again when "I Love You So Much It Hurts Me". That song became a Top 5 hit. In 1949 he wrote and released the song that would define his career: "Slippin' Around". It was one of the first songs to directly deal with infidelity. It was a smash country and pop hit for Oklahoma's cowboy actor Jimmy Wakely and Margaret Whiting.
In 1976, Tillman was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1984 he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Willie Nelson, a great admirer of his, performed for Tillman at his 85th birthday party in 1999.
Floyd Tillman, 88, died Aug. 22, 2003 at his home in Bacliff, Texas, south of Houston. He had leukemia.
PERSONAL NOTE: I had the pleasure of doing a radio interview with Floyd Tillman in about 1990. I was doing a morning talk show for KSNY radio in Snyder, Texas, and I did a phone interview with him (he was at his home, then, in Marble Falls, Texas). He was a congenial gentleman.
CLICK HERE to go to the Floyd Tillman Fan Club web site.
Dave Tingey
Dave Tingey, cowboy poety, was raised on a cow calf operation in Wayan, Idaho. He started training horses when he was twelve years old, and has been training them ever since. He has also ridden bulls and bare-back broncs, and even did a some rodeo clowning along the way.Dave says, "I like cowboy poetry cause, it is like rodeoing, without the pain. And you meet so many great people." He is a past President of the Cowboy Poets of Idaho, Inc., a group now numbering over 100 persons. He has been a featured cowboy poet in several shows across Idaho, as well as in Utah, Wyoming, Virginia, Montana and up in Canada.
Tingey has two cowboy poetry books out: Over the Hill and Up the Creek, and Saddle Bag Wit and Wisdom.
Dave Tingey is married and has three children and five grand children.
Jim BobTinsley
Jim Bob Tinsley sings and plays both the guitar and the harmonica. He began performing on the radio in 1935. As a young Navy sailor, he was stationed at Casablanca in French Morocco when the historic meeting took place between F.D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. And he got to sing several western songs for Prime Minister Churchill.
He has worked with Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Buddy Ebsen, Loren Greene, Dan Blocker, Clu Gulager, and Clare Luce and has even appeared on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. He has several albums of western songs to his credit, including "He Was Singin' This Song" and "For a Cowboy Has to Sing".
Tinsley is the author of Land of the Waterfalls, The Sailfish: Swashbuckler of the Open Seas, The Florida Panther, From Totopotomoy to Translvania, He Was Singin' This Song (Florida University Press, 1981) and The Puma: Legendary Lion of the Americas (Texas Western Press), and For A Cowboy Has to Sing (1991).
In 1982, he received a Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame for his "outstanding contribution to America's Western heritage in the field of music." That was the first time the Wrangler had been given to a person other than the composer of an original work for film or TV.
And in 1999 he was inducted into the Western Music Association's Hall of Fame.
Over the years he has worked as a teacher, counselor, outdoor writer, cowboy, actor, director and photographer. Jim Bob and Dottie are noted for providing down-home entertainment at many of the WWA Conventions. Whether it's singing, picking the guitar or dancing a mountain clogger, they'll be right in the thick of things. Jim Bob Tinsley is a member of WWA, Outdoor Writers of America, and Westerners International.
Dottie & Jim Bob Tinsley with
Stan & Peggy Paregien at the
1999 Western Music Association
Festival in Tucson, AZ.PERSONAL NOTE: My wife and I first met Jim Bob and Dottie Tinsley at a Western Writers of America convention in about 1986. We have since enjoyed their company two or three times a year at various Western events. Two more charming and talented people you will never meet. My story, "The Urge to Kill," is based on a practical joke that Dottie played on us at a WWA meeting one year. Click Here to read that story. --Stan Paregien
In 1988 Jim Bob Tinsley became only the second person inducted into the newly established National Cowboy Song and Poetry Hall of Fame at a concert held in Sundance, Wyoming. In 2000 he received the "Will Rogers Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Academy of Western Artists.
And in 2000, nearing his 80th birthday, Jim Bob Tinsley recorded two CD's.
CD #1: "Jim Bob & Dottie Tinsley - Recorded Together for the First Time". This CD contains 16 songs, with Jim Bob picking and singing, while Dottie gives a brief history of each song. The songs are taken from Tinsley's books He Was Singin' This Song and For a Cowboy Has to Sing.
CD #2: "Most Requested Favorites" This CD contains 11 songs that have been the most often requested by fans over the years. Jim Bob Tinsley sings such songs as "Old Buckaroo," "Me and My Burro," and "Riding Down the Canyon".
To order, call 352-694-3362 (Oct. 15--May 1, Florida home) or 828-885-2923 (May 1 -- Oct. 15, North Carolina). Or send orders to: 125 Miner St., Brevard, NC 28712 or 217 SE 31st Ave., Ocala, FL 34471.
Greg Tobin
A native of Independence, Mo., Greg Tobin graduated from William Chrisman High School, where he was student body president, in 1973. He received his B.A. in philosophy from Yale University in 1977. Tobin began his publishing career as an assistant editor at Tower Books. He then worked at Ace Books as their Western editor, followed by a stint with Doubleday. At Bantam, he is a senior editor and currently acquires fiction and non-fiction manuscripts for both hardcover and paperback. He is also publishing manager for the Doubleday western program.
Besides being an editor, Tobin has been a member of WWA since 1981 and is also the author of several books. His first book was Seasons of Power (1981), co-authored with Sam Tanahaus. He wrote several westerns under a pseudonym. Books bearing his own name include Steelman's Way (Ballantine, 1985), Jericho (Ballentine, 1986), Kid Stark (Doubleday, 1987; Ballantine, 1988), and Big Horn (Ballantine, 1989).
Ruby C. Tolliver
Ruby C. Tolliver was born on May 29, 1922, and has lived in Conroe since 1948. She began writing when her husband, a construction engineer, was working out of state and all three of their children were in college. She has been a member of the Hughie Call Scribblers Club since 1965. She worked in Civil Service with the Navy and OPA, then worked as an interviewer with a Texas employment office. She also served as Deputy Tax Assessor and Collector for Montgomery County, Texas.
Ruby C. Tolliver holds a lifetime membership in the Texas PTA for her work with her local elementary school over a period of many years. She has also worked since 1965 as a volunteer teaching English as a second language to migrant Mexican workers and to Sudanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodians. She is working as a volunteer chaplain to the women inmates of the county jail, and she is an active member of the Mims Baptist Church.
She has also written for such magazines as Home Life, Mature Living, The War Cry, Alive for Teens and Living Messenger.Tolliver is a frequent lecturer at colleges and schools and writers' workshops on Young Adult historical writing.
Ruby C. Tolliver's published books include five young adult novels: Summer of Decision (1979), Decision at Sea (1980), More Than One Decision (1982), A Question of Doors, and Decision at Brushy Creek (all by Broadman Press). She also wrote western young adult historical novel, Muddy Banks (Texas Christian University Press, 1987). That book won the 1987 Texas Institute of Letters Award for best teen/young adult book. And it won the Evelyn Oppenheimer award for best young adult for 1987. It was one of the three finalists for a WWA Spur in the juvenile category. Her sixth book was, Blind Bess, Buddy and Me ( Hendrick & Long).
Walker A. Tompkins
"Two-Gun" (Deceased)
Walker A. Thompkins was one of the 14 charter members of Western Writers of America. He was nicknamed "Two-Gun" because of his tremendous output of pulp short stories and of western novels. Tompkins wrote 59 hard-cover books and 1,200 magazine articles during his long and distinguished career.
In fact, he once took a portable typewriter to the top of the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt and spent 12 hours there writing a western novelette. He also wrote scripts and stories for radio, the movies and TV. He wrote scripts for such TV programs as "Lone Ranger", "Death Valley Days," "The Cisco Kid," and "Cheyenne".In Santa Barbara County, Tompkins was noted for his radio vignettes and for a newspaper column on local history. He served as the staff historian on the Santa Barbara News-Press for 10 years, and he was often in demand as a speaker.
Walker A. Tompkins died at the age of 79 at his home in Santa Barbara on Nov. 24, 1988. Longtime WWA member David Myrick was one of the speakers at the funeral for Tompkins.
Neal Torrey
Neal Torrey, cowboy poet, was born in Missouri but grew up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he raised AQHA and Appaloosa horses. He now lives in Bolivar, Missouri.
Neal Torrey is a member of the Missouri Cowboy Poets Association and the Oklahoma Western Heritage, Inc. He is the author of Sagebrush Sentiments.
Torrey says, "I grew up reading Will James and Zane Grey, in fact, I think I read all that our small library had of those two. I tried my best to learn how to draw horses like Will James and Charlie Russell. I spent my Saturday afternoons in the movie theatres, watching Hopalong Cassidy, the Durango Kid, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Bob Steele, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Red Ryder and all that bunch of good, clean-cut heroes.
"Later in life, as a Special Deputy Sheriff in Teton County, in Wyoming, I rode patrol on horseback, six-gun strapped to my hip, looking for (believe it or not) cattle rustlers! I had to pinch myself to see that I wasn't dreaming.
Our children, and perhaps a good many of our young adults need exposure to the moral code that was held by the real cowboys and ranchers. The later Hollywood image of the anti-hero in the leading role has done a lot of damage to the true story of the West.
"As I can, I try with my cowboy poetry to show the cowboy, the rancher, the lawman, the soldier and the Native American in a good, positive light. Sure, there were bad men in the West, but they were definitely a minority, and were quickly eliminated by the decent citizens of the West. There is much to tell of the privations, the harsh weather and primitive conditions under which the men of the old West functioned.
"If you study the hymns and the songs of the cowboy, you see that for the most part, he was a man of honor, integrity and faith. That story is one that needs to be told, and I have taken it upon myself to tell it."
Homer R. Townsend
(Deceased)
Homer R. Townsend wrote Western short stories and novels under the name of "H.R. Townsend". He died in 1955 (see death notice in the June, 1955 issue of The Roundup).
This listing is far from complete and may contain errors.
Therefore, all Western entertainers and/or their agents
are requested to submit recommended changes by
contacting Stan Paregien through his e-mail address.
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
--- Bible: Ephesians 4:29
© 2003 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
