Connie Leroy Yarbrough was born in Gorman Texas one week shy of the Japanese bombing at Pearl Harbor. He would later tell people news of his arrival probably precipitated the attack.

The youngest of four children, he was named after his father Connie Austin but was Leroy to his family and friends. The name was pronounced Lee Roy and never, ever Le-Roy.

He attended high school in Olden, Texas, and worked as a lifeguard at Gorman’s Bass Lake and the Ranger city pool, where he met his wife, Linda; “the girl in the white bathing suit”. There would be no other love.

After an abbreviated run at college, and a brief stint in the army where he either single handedly prevented World War III, or nearly caused it, depending on the story, he worked as a tool grinder for General Dynamics and later Texas Instruments.

In 1972 he moved his family to Evant, where Linda had a job teaching school. From here he would launch his epic journey; traveling the length of the Rio Grande River by canoe and on foot. A book deal based on his journal was optioned, but later dropped by Doubleday. It was the only time his writing failed to attract an audience.

In 1976 he purchased the Evant News, a weekly paper, which he edited successfully for three years. During this time, the first of his hand illustrated humorous short stories, Up the Creek began appearing. The series was later syndicated and appeared in newspapers across the country.

Yarbrough was a contributing author to numerous historical magazines, including Frontier Times. He would produce, briefly, his own magazine, Vanishing Texas, which focused on the history and lore of his beloved home state, and also wrote Canyon of the Eagles a history of the people who settled along the Colorado River, above the highland lakes.

A noted Texas historian, his works are prized by researchers and academics.