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Authors Appearing During the
2011 Re-Enactment Weekend
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Brigadier General Ronald Van Stockum, Sr.
Known to many as simply “The General”, Ronald Van Stockum, Sr. is a living legend in Shelby County. As a local historian with a vivid interest in Squire Boone, Van Stockum has researched and written a wealth of information. Van Stockum is the author of “Squire Boone & Nicholas Meriwether: Kentucky Pioneers,” which provides insight into Shelby County’s early beginnings through the lives of two well-known pioneer citizens.
In an effort to record the truth, fifteen to twenty years ago Van Stockum visited Boone’s North Carolina home and the Boone family home in Defiance, Missouri. He’s spent countless hours retracing the life of Squire Boone (1744-1815), wanting to disentangle him from the lore surrounding his elder brother Daniel, and tell Squire’s story to a new generation of readers.
Van Stockum’s book actually first appeared as a series of columns in The Sentinel News. By turning it into a book Van Stockum was able to realize a dream of “what I had long wanted to do,” he said. Van Stockum is also the author of “Kentucky and the Bourbons: The Story of Allen Dale Farm.” A few chapters of this book deal with early Shelby County history as well.
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For 30 years, Ronald R. Van Stockum, Sr. served as a career officer in the Marine Corps. He attained the distinguished ranking of Brigadier General, a rank he is deservedly proud of. After retiring from the Marine Corp, Van Stockum worked for 11 years at the University of Louisville in various capacities including Assistant Dean of Administration of the School of Medicine.
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Byron Crawford
Shelbyville’s own Byron Crawford will be signing his latest book, Kentucky Footnotes, at this year’s event. A favorite wherever he goes and whatever he writes about, Crawford’s book is an anthology of some of his most interesting columns from his 29 years as an award winning columnist for the Louisville Courier Journal. He is best known for covering back roads, small towns and their citizens in Kentucky.
Crawford is a member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. He can often find “the story within a story” that his peers have missed. He focuses on the fact that every individual, no matter who they are or how small their accomplishments, has a great story to tell. He has a talent for finding interesting people who do interesting things.
His stories have even been known to spark worldwide interest. His story about blind trumpet player Patrick Henry Hughes wound up with Hughes being featured on Oprah and the popular television show, Extreme Home Makeover, where Hughes’ family home received a makeover.
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Dr. William Lynwood Montell
Dr. Montell is always a favorite at the Long Run Massacre. He is a Rock Bridge, Monroe County native who has written over 20 major books including: Kentucky Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Ghosts Along the Cumberland, Family Ghosts of Kentucky, Tales from Kentucky Doctors, and Tales from Kentucky Funeral Homes. He has also contributed chapters to other books (including one each in England and Germany) and has written numerous scholarly journal articles published all across the United States.
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Montell graduated from Western Kentucky University in 1960, and then received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Indiana University in 1963 and 1964. He has taught as well as held administrative offices at Campbellsville College (1963-1969) and Western Kentucky University (1969-1999). He founded the Folk Studies Program at the latter college in 1972. For a time, he held the position of visiting professor at UCLA and the University of Notre Dame.
He has been featured as a statewide speaker/storyteller for years by the Kentucky Humanities Council in Lexington. In March 2003 Montell received the Governor’s Arts Award in the Folk Heritage Category, an award based on the books he has penned that focus on local life, history and culture.
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Susan Dyer, Author
Encourager for the Judge Joseph Holt House
Born at Fort Knox, Susan Dyer was educated at Western Kentucky University with a B.S., M.A., and Rank I in Education. Formerly a Language Arts teacher, Susan has been included numerous times in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.
Dyer lives in Breckinridge County, Kentucky, with her husband. They have two sons. Undertaking two projects at the same time, she has written the sensational story of Judge Joseph Holt, Judge Advocate General under President Lincoln, while working with various groups to save and restore Holt’s boyhood home as part of the Lincoln Bicentennial Celebration.
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Susan Dyer, Encourager for the Judge Joseph Holt House serves on three committees for the house; The Holt House Steering Committee, The Friends of the Holt House and is Vice-Chair of the Kentucky Lincoln Heritage Trail Alliance. Dyer is a featured speaker of the Speakers Bureau of the Kentucky Humanities Council.
Susan continues advocating for the preservation of the Judge Joseph Holt House in rural Breckinridge County to educate others about his legacy and role in President Lincoln’s administration. On July 14, 2010 the second printing of Lincoln’s Advocate was released by Acclaim Press and the book is in major book stores across Kentucky.
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Fred Gross
Gross was barely 3 years old in May 1940 when Germany invaded his homeland, Belgium. Along with his mother, father and two elder brothers, Gross spent two years eluding the Nazis, a flight he did not understand until years later. The result of his experiences is recorded in “One Step Ahead of Hitler: A Jewish Child’s Journey through France.”
Gross, 74, did not gather material for the book until years later. Having been a reporter, he relied on his journalistic skills; he majored in journalism at New York University. He interviewed his mother and brothers and the outcome is a book about the consequences of his wartime experiences then and now.
He now lives in Louisville and in 2008 at a hearing of the Kentucky General Assembly Senate Education Committee, he testified in favor of a bill requiring the state’s public schools to offer students a Holocaust curriculum. The bill passed and resulted in Holocaust High School Curriculum Guide. Gross has spoken locally to more than 120 eighth grade students at Shelby County High School.
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Ronald Elliott
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Lincoln County native Ron Elliot has been a history buff since childhood. His works include: “Assassination at the State House”, “The Silent Brigade”, “Inside the Beverly Hills Supper Club Fire”, “Through the Eyes of Lincoln,” and “From Hilltop to Mountain Top: Life and Legacy of One Iwo Jima Flag Raiser.”
The later book is about a marine, Franklin Runyon Sousley, who was from Elliott’s home state of Kentucky. Sousley was immortalized in the photo of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima that was taken on Mount Suribachi. In his own words, Elliott said Sousley was “just a good ole country boy, no different from me or the guys I grew up with.” Elliott was contacted by Dwayne Price, Sousley’s nephew, to write the book using the family’s extensive collection of newspaper clippings, notes, pictures and personal letters from Sousley.
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Elliott, who lives in Bardstown, is a featured speaker for the Kentucky Humanities Council’s Speakers Bureau. Topics he speaks about includes Henry Watterson, Alben Barkley and Irvin S. Cobb.
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Authors will be available from 10-2 on Saturday with books for purchase and signing.
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