I’m living a dream of stewardship on 240 acres along the Edge of the Great Plains; a dream shaped by a journey that began in rural North Texas, carried me through a 24‑year career in the U.S. Army, and eventually led me to Kansas. For years after my military career, I balanced a second career with the work of restoring this land. By 2021, the tension between my professional life and my stewardship calling had become too much. I chose to leave that career behind and live off‑grid, fully committed to the place that had been shaping me all along.

I first bought this property as a Whitetail Deer hunting tract. About five years ago, I had an epiphany that changed everything. I realized I’d been shaping the land to serve my needs. In that moment, I chose to reshape myself to serve the land’s needs. Stewardship wasn’t a task; it was a calling. That shift made all the difference, and it continues to define how I live and how I write.

My debut narrative nonfiction book, From the Edge of the Great Plains, tells the story of that transformation — from a boy in North Texas to a land steward on the Great Plains. It shares the hard‑won lessons I’ve learned from invasive weeds, disease, death, drought, land management, and the slow, unforgiving work of restoration, and how those lessons apply not just to individuals, but to communities and to our nation. I never planned to write a book, but in the fall of 2025, I felt compelled to get the story down. Four months later, the manuscript was complete. I pitched it to the acquisitions editor at Plainspoken Books, University Press of Kansas — and the rest is history.

The land didn’t just change how I lived — it changed what I felt compelled to write. Bitten by the writing bug, I wrote a fiction novel in the summer of 2026. King Maker – The Sanctuary is a thriller set on the same land I’ve worked and loved, inspired by a real encounter years ago with a poacher. The story explores a “what if” version of that moment and is the first in a two‑book series. The second novel, King Maker – The Legacy, will follow in the fall and winter of 2026.

Both books — fiction and nonfiction — come from the same place: a life shaped by land, service, and the quiet work of stewardship.