Author: Alvin Ray Yount
Alternate names: Alvin Ray
Title: Please God! Let Them Be Dead! : A Five-Year-Old's Autobiography
Born: May 18, 1945
Bio: SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION

About the Author

Hannibal Missouri: Born in Hannibal, Missouri toward the end of the Second World War, Ray’s life seemed more like that of a fictional character created by Mark Twain, also from Hannibal. 

Runaway: leaving home at the age of fourteen, he wasn’t unable to finish high school until he was in his early twenty’s. At age fifteen, the authorities, from Desoto County Florida, took him off the streets and placed Ray in the Florida School for Boys at Okeechobee. However, he spent most of his teen years on the road hitchhiking between California and Florida, having worked one odd job after another. 

Vocational: In his early twenties, he finally completed high school and after a brief technical career, moved into management with the County of Santa Barbara, California. 

Legislature: While working in county government Alvin Ray developed a fervent interest in politics and made a bid for the California State Legislature in 1984. 

Soldier of Fortune to Corporate Executive: In his early thirty’s, he left his management career for the gold fields of Southern California. It wasn’t too long before the complexity of the ore body he was mining forced him back into the real world where he rapidly climbed the corporate ladder to a “Director’s position” in a billion-dollar corporation. 

Cowboy: In 1993, thinking he was ready for retirement, Ray sought to fulfill his childhood dream of owning a cattle ranch. He bought a ranch in Colorado, stocked it with the popular Hereford - Angus cross, and began his new “life on the range.” 

Activist: It seemed the quite, peaceful, lifestyle of a cowboy wasn’t quite enough to occupy his mind and not long after he established his “Triple ‘Y’ Ranch,” Ray reentered politics. His statewide effort to involve Christian conservatives in political events met with major opposition from Colorado’s existing liberal regime. While endorsing a national Jewish organization, the Republican® state Central Committee denied Ray’s Christian group a charter. One party official said, “You’ll not be granted a charter as long as the word Christian remains in your organization’s name.”

Publisher: For three years, Alvin Ray published his monthly political newsletter, the “Spring Branch Feeder,” reaching a circulation of six thousand, in an effort to expand Colorado Christian’s involvement in politics. Colorado’s “Rocky Mountain News” and “Denver Post” came out in strong opposition to the Christian campaign. Only the “Pueblo Chieftain” published an unbiased editorial regarding the movement. The crusade failed simply because people were afraid of losing. The cardinal rule in all politics has been to “stand with a winner.” 

Academic: Very late in life, Ray enrolled in a B.A. in Business Administration program with the University of Phoenix. However, with only 90 units completed, he was admitted into an advanced degree program with Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Accordingly, at age 59 he earned his Masters degree in Journalism. Since his graduation, Professor Yount has taught Writing, Speech, Business Communication, Organizational Behavior and Business Ethics at either Regent University, Prescott College or Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Professor Yount's research areas are in Organizational Communication and Child Abuse.