Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
Loading
CD![]()
author
Cleo Dawson
Cleo Dawson (1902-1990) was an American novelist, college professor, TV personality, and author of articles in many of the nation’s top magazines.
She was born in 1902 in Oklahoma...view moreCleo Dawson (1902-1990) was an American novelist, college professor, TV personality, and author of articles in many of the nation’s top magazines.
She was born in 1902 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the eldest daughter of Ed and Helen Dawson, and was raised in Mission, Texas. Following high school graduation, she attended Mary Hardin-Baylor University (then an all-woman’s college) in Waco, Texas, and Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. She then returned to Mission and became the first Spanish teacher at Mission High School. Dawson earned her doctorate in psychology at the University of Kentucky, where she went on to teach. She then became a speaker on the Rotary Club Circuit and gave lectures to other organizations. This was followed by appearances as a popular psychologist on The Merv Griffin Show, and she also starred in The Ed Nelson Show (1969) and The Bob Braun Show (1967).
Her bestselling 1943 novel, She Came to the Valley, was adapted into a western-genre film in 1978, starring Ronee Blakley, Scott Glenn, Freddy Fender and Dean Stockwell, which broke weekend attendance records at Rio Grande theatres in its first run in January 1979. That same year she was honoured as “First Lady of Mission” in her hometown.
Cleo Dawson passed away in Kentucky in 1990 and was buried in Mission at the Laurel Hill Cemetery on Holland Avenue near Mission High School and 18th Street, which bears her name.view less