Author’s Biography

John D. Wright lives in Terre Haute, Indiana. He has a master’s degree from Indiana State University and has worked on the staff of the Terre Haute Tribune-Star newspaper for more than 20 years. As a longtime reporter, he covered news and sports stories in the Wabash Valley ranging from high-school basketball games to murder trials. Among his awards is a state Society of Professional Journalists 1992 first-place award for investigative reporting; and a Hoosier State Press Association 1994 first place for deadline reporting after witnessing in person the execution of mass murderer John Wayne Gacy. Wright’s interest in boxing dates from his childhood; his father, “Ren” Wright, boxed amateur bouts out of Sullivan, Indiana, from 1949 to 1951, and often talked about “Bud” Taylor. Wright also knows about one-on-one sports – he is a USPTA-certified tennis instructor and frequently a nationally ranked player in his age division.

In four dedicated years of research and writing in his spare time, Wright conducted extensive interviews, buried himself into newspaper microfilm and studied U.S. history from the 1920s in assembling “The Terror of Terre Haute, Bud Taylor and the 1920s”.

The book, 50-plus chapters long, is meticulously sourced, with more than a thousand citations plus a bibliography.