Gary Taylor Biography
Gary Taylor (Gary Dale Taylor) is an American journalist and author best known for reporting for newspapers and magazines from Houston, Texas, since 1971 and for the attempt on his life in 1980 by controversial Texas attorney Catherine Mehaffey Shelton. He is also known for recording his recollection of that event in an award-winning 2008 memoir entitled Luggage By Kroger.
Gary Taylor Age
Gary was born on March 4th, 1947 born in St. Louis, Missouri, he is 72years old as of 2019.
Gary Taylor Family| Young
Taylor was born the only son and oldest of three children to Dale and Rheva (Wright) Taylor, who had left the farmlands of Central Missouri during the Great Depression to seek opportunities in the nearest big city. Despite a lack of formal education beyond elementary school, Dale Taylor became a successful entrepreneur in St. Louis after World War II, creating the city’s largest business for sales and service of gasoline-powered lawnmowers as that industry grew increasingly important in American culture. Rheva (Wright) Taylor was a homemaker until her death in 1981. His father Dale Taylor died in 1984. Gary Taylor’s younger sister, Brenda, is an assistant US Attorney in Denver, Colorado, and another sister, Sherri, works in the banking industry in St. Louis.
Gary Taylor Married | Children
Taylor has married and divorced twice. He has two grown daughters and three grandsons from the second marriage, which figured prominently as a prelude to his ill-fated 1979 relationship with Mehaffey.
Gary Taylor Education
Taylor got enrolled at in St. Louis-area public schools, graduating in 1965 from Pattonville High School in St. Ann, Missouri. He later joined the University of Missouri at Columbia, graduating in 1969 with a Bachelor of Journalism degree from that university’s School of Journalism. The university honored him with the Walter Williams Award, given annually to the graduating student deemed the “outstanding writer” at the Missouri School of Journalism.
Gary Taylor Career
Taylor began his journalism career as a reporter in Flint, Michigan, for the Flint Journal, where he covered the Genesee County Courthouse and legal affairs for that paper until December 1971. He left Flint to take a job with The Houston Post, where he remained until August 1980. During his years at The Houston Post, Taylor covered a wide range of stories and beats but focused primarily on police, the Texas prison system, criminal courts, and legal affairs.
In 1976 the paper nominated him for the Pulitzer Prize, recognizing his work on a series of stories that resulted in the release of an aged inmate from the Texas prison system. And, in 1978 he shared the Texas UPI Enterprise Reporting award with another Post reporter for work on a series of articles exposing police corruption in the Houston suburb of Jacinto City. While serving as the paper’s beat reporter at the Harris County Criminal Courthouse between 1977 and 1980, Taylor covered dozens of capital murder trials.
Taylor’s byline also appeared in the Post’s coverage of a number of historically significant Texas legal events, including coverage of the 1974 Huntsville Prison Siege standoff between officials and inmates at the Huntsville Unit of the Texas prison system; the 1977 trial of Houston police officers accused in the racially charged death of a Hispanic laborer; and, one of the trials of Fort Worth tycoon T. Cullen Davis.
Taylor resigned from The Houston Post in August 1980 to begin the second phase of his journalism career, self-employed as a freelancer in Houston. This phase would last 17 years. During his freelance career, Taylor held contract positions with four national publications. He was responsible for coverage of Texas courts and legal affairs for the National Law Journal (1986–1997). He covered financial affairs as the Houston correspondent for Money magazine (1983–1997). He covered trade and business news for The Journal of Commerce (1985–1997). And, he covered the oil and gas industry for the AAPG Explorer, the official publication of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (1980–1997).
Taylor also served as a stringer for the Houston Bureau of Time magazine. In addition, Taylor researched, wrote and sold hundreds of articles to many other publications on a wide range of subjects from medical technology to sports and general interest. A short summary of some of his articles is available on his personal Web site,”Taylor’s Hole in the Web.” Besides reporting for magazines and newspapers, Taylor also researched and wrote four books during these years.
One was a coffee table book about the city of Houston entitled Gateway to the Future, produced as a marketing project for the publisher. The second was a book about the history of the Federal Reserve System (ISBN 1-55546-136-0), written as a contract assignment for that publisher. The third was a privately financed corporate history of a Houston industrial gases company named Big Three Industries. And the fourth was written for a client who retained him to ghost a memoir about the client’s experiences as a Vietnam refugee and undercover drug investigator. Called China Green, the book was never published.
In 1997, Taylor began the current phase of his journalism career, working full-time as a staffer for two international business publications. From June 1997 until April 2004, Taylor covered the international chemical industry as deputy editor for the Reed Elsevier online news site, Chemical News & Intelligence (CNI). And, since April 2004, Taylor has covered the oil and gas business for Platts Oilgram News, a daily newsletter published by the McGraw-Hill Companies.
At CNI, Taylor functioned as a wire service reporter and editor in the Houston bureau of that pioneering Web-based publication while traveling widely to cover the chemical industry. In February 2001, CNI assigned him to spend six weeks reorganizing the network’s Singapore news bureau. Other overseas assignments for CNI took him to Vienna, Monte Carlo and Rio de Janeiro. As senior writer in the Houston bureau of Platts Oilgram News, Taylor covers all aspects of the US oil and gas business including corporate earnings for more than 80 companies, oilfield discoveries, exploration in the Gulf of Mexico and merger-acquisitions activities.
Taylor’s experiences covering courts and legal affairs also has proved useful at Oilgram News, where he has had occasion to handle several high-profile legal stories from the energy industry. In 2004 he covered the unsuccessful attempt by US executives of Russian oil company Yukos to prosecute a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in Houston. In 2006 he covered the investigation into a $70 million embezzlement by the chief financial officer of a Texas contract drilling company. And, also in 2006, Taylor covered one of the criminal trials of former Enron chief executive Ken Lay.
Gary Taylor Net Worth
Taylor estimated net worth is under review, there is no information about his net worth or salary but he is said to have been earning a huge salary from his work.