Western New Mexico University alumni

Kenneth Wayne Brewer (November 28, 1941 – March 15, 2006) was an American poet and longtime scholar who resided in Utah, where he served as Poet Laureate. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, he attended Butler University and Western New Mexico University in the 1960s, then earned a master's degree in English literature from New Mexico State University, followed by a Ph.D. from the University of Utah, where he worked with Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Taylor, in 1973. Since that time he taught a wide variety of courses at Utah State University, concentrating on mentoring creative writers at the graduate level, while publishing prolifically and speaking extensively. He died after a nine-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

Jerry Don Thompson (born November 21, 1942) is Regents Piper Professor of History at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas. He is a prolific author of books on a variety of related topics, specializing in the American Civil War, the history of the Southwestern United States, and Texas history. According to WorldCat, two of his books are available from more than six hundred major libraries worldwide – Confederate General of the West: Henry Hopkins Sibley, and Civil War in the Southwest: Recollections of the Sibley Brigade.