About the author

 

N.T. (Tom) Betz, reitred editor of The Goodland Star-News, has spent a lifetime in journalism and on the Great Plains. A U.S. Navy journalist (1969-73) and a graduate of the University of Colorado, Betz started his career delivering papers for his family's newspaper The Lamar Daily News in Lamar, Colo., winning the first of numerous journalism awards as a teenager (1966). The Betz family owned the newspaper for 69 years (1920-1989).

He grew up on stories of the First National Bank of Lamar robbery, and the Fleagle gang, originally reported on by his grandfather, Fred Betz, Sr.

Tom became personally interested in the story when the Prowers County Historical Society was given a blue 1927 Buick Master Six reported to be the getaway car used by the Fleagle gang in 1928.

Betz is a former publisher of The Lamar Daily News, a past president of the Colorado Press Association and author of countless newspaper and magazine articles. He has won awards for writing and photography in Colorado and Kansas Press Associations and National Newspaper Association.

Betz has spent much of his free time exploring the history and deep sea fossils of the Great Plains states.

Betz moved to Arizona in 2014 to help his mother, and after she died in 2015 he and his Wife, Ava, purchased the family home in the Wild Horse Estates near Casa Grande, Ariz. They continue to live there and enjoy the small over 55 community where there are 65 homes near the Pinal County Fairgrounds.

Betz continues to work on hus second book about J.E.B. Stuart who helped build Olde Fort Wise/Lyon west of Lamar on the Arkansas River in 1860 before leaving to return to Virginia where Gen. Stuart became famous as a Confederate calvary officer.