Author Elmer Kelton, seen in a 2003 file photo, died Saturday at age 83. (Cameron Yarborough/San Angelo Standard Times/Associated Press)Western writer Elmer Kelton, whose novel The Good Old Boys was made into a 1995 television movie starring Tommy Lee Jones, died at his home in San Angelo, Tex., on Saturday. He was 83.
Kelton had 62 fiction and non-fiction books to his credit. He was also well known for The Man Who Rode Midnight and The Time It Never Rained.
The Western Writers of America voted him Best Western Author of All Time and awarded him its Spur Award seven times. Four of his books won the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.
The German Association for the Study of the Western, based in Muenster, Germany, made him an honorary member. The association presents the Elmer Kelton Award for Literary Merit every year.
Kelton grew up on the McElroy Ranch in west Texas.
"Stockmen from all over the southwest know Elmer Kelton. He looks like them, talks like them, wears clothes like them and can talk prices of lambs, goats, feeder steers, wool and mohair with plenty of ease and knowledge," noted a recent profile of Kelton in Ranch Magazine.
A journalist by trade, Kelton worked as an editor for Ranch Magazine years ago when it was called Texas Sheep and Goat Raiser Magazine. He also spent 15 years on the San Angelo Standard Times as farm and ranch writer and editor, and worked as an editor at Livestock Weekly, from which he retired in 1990.
But he never retired from writing books. He recently finished Texas Standoff, which will be in bookstores next year. His second-to-last novel, Other Men's Horses, will be released this fall.
Kelton is survived by his wife, Ann, and three children.
With files from The Associated Press
