TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - Bill O’Neal, a former Texas State Historian and author, died Monday at the age of 83.

O’Neal served as state historian from 2012 to 2018. He was born in Corsicana and started his teaching career as a high school football coach. He started teaching at Panola College in Carthage in 1970, where he would spend four decades giving lectures.

“On any given day, he could be seen strolling across campus as a Revolutionary War officer, a frontiersman, or a medieval lord,” stated his obituary.

O’Neal, the author of 59 books, received the A.C. Greene Literary Award in 2015; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Wild West History Association; True West Magazine’s Best Living Non-Fiction Writer for 2007; the NOLA Book of the Year for his book, The Johnson County War; and an Ho

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