FRED STAFF was born in Seminole and raised in Pawnee. He was all-state in football and all-district and all-conference
in basketball and also was third in the state in the shot put.
Staff graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma where he was the defensive tackle on the first national champion
team in the history of the school. Very proud of the fact that the team only had 72 points scored on them in 11 games.
Fred taught school in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and coached all sports. They were district and conference champions both
years and lost to the state champion team in the second year.
Years later Fred spent seven years teaching in prisons in Missouri and Kansas. While teaching in the maximum security
prison in Kansas he had the room where Truman Capoti interviewed the killers which lead him to write IN COLD BLOOD. Staff
also stood on his balcony and could see where the killers were hung.
In his own mind, Staff feels that this had something to do with his desire to write.
Fred Staff became the Director of the United Community Action Agency in Pawnee in 1965. The agency grew from two people
to two hundred and ninety-five in the five years he was there. He was recruited by Florida and spent time as the Director
of Rural Economic Development and Director of the Migrant and Farmworkers program during his seven years there.
When Staff returned to Oklahoma he raised Angus cattle for twenty years and also was in the real estate and construction
business.
Staff's quest for excitement brought him to Bolivia in search for gold and did that for five years he later returned to
teaching in Bolivia and now is retired here.
Fred's love of history was stimulated by a visit to Potosi Bolivia and this experience caused him to write his first book.
A historical fiction about this unbelievable city and a man who nearly bankrupted Spain and the Catholic church. This book
became a bestseller in both the US and South America. The stories' success drove him to write more about things he researched
and being that Oklahoma was his home and also having had a fantastic history teacher in Dr. Peterson at UCO he concentrated
on the history of Indian Territory.
Bass Reeves offered Fred a story that was so outstanding that he seemed a fictional character, but the more he researched
Bass the greater Reeves became. His three books (a trilogy) on Bass Reeves were bestsellers and it was reported that over
seven million pages have been read in the series.
Fred Staff has since written over fifty books and is in the process of donating all of them to the UCO scholarship program.
BOOK 1 OF 3
BOOK 2 OF 3
BOOK 3 OF 3
This motion picture was based on Fred Staff's Bass Reeves Trilogy. 2019
