George R. Matthews
AUTHOR

George R. Matthews

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Billy the Kid: The Life Behind the Legend will be published by McFarland and Company in May 2024. Historian and author, George R. Matthews lives in the borderlands of the Chihuahuan Desert in southern New Mexico, near the Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument. He received the 2023 National Coalition of Independent Scholars Amanda Haste Research Grant and a 2023 New Mexico Writers Grant. A 2022 and three-time recipient of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies Research Grant, he has also twice been awarded the Historical Society of New Mexico and Office of the State Historian Research Fellowship. A former high school and community college history teacher, fitness instructor, and athletic director, he has run six marathons, hiked the Grand Canyon rim to rim, and hiked most of the Pacific Crest Trail. On two occasions he lived in a tipi for a year following the seasons in Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. Tipi Seasons will be a future book. He is a former U. S. Delegate to the International Olympic Academy in Olympia, Greece and served as a National Park Service Volunteer for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. He has driven the Alaska Highway, hiked Denali National Park, canoed the Boundary Waters, and organized groups to Mt. Kilimanjaro and Machu Picchu. His 2016 book, Zebulon Pike: Thomas Jefferson's Agent for Empire, tells the story of Pike's 1806-1807 exploration and spy mission to Spanish New Mexico. His previous books include When the Cubs Won It All: The 1908 Championship Season; America's First Olympics; and St. Louis Olympics, 1904 (a photographic history). He is a member of Biographers International Organization, The National Coalition of Independent Scholars, Women Writing the West (men allowed), the Wild West History Association, and the Western History Association. He is also a member of 19 American West and Billy the Kid Facebook groups on which he makes a weekly Billy the Kid History Note post reaching an international audience of over 400,000 in at least 12 countries. He holds two Master of Arts degrees: New Mexico State University (history) and San Diego State University (physical education-sport history). He earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Frostburg State University in Maryland. A native of Maryland, he served as a Marine Corps Artillery and Battalion Training and Education Officer (Captain).
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