Our lone prose reader, Manzano High School teacher and historian Chuck (Charles) Usmar is also a petroglyph preservation activist and regular participant in Harwood poetry productions. Usmar, who read a non-fiction piece on the Lincoln County Wars at the 2008 Picnic, presented a paper on "The Lords of Lincoln County - Murphy & Dolan", two key players in the Lincoln County Wars at the Wild West Historical Association Conference in Ruidoso. This year he'll read a chapter titled "The Man Who Was Hanged Twice" from his forthcoming book on the Lincoln County Wars The Perfect Thorn at the Poets & Writers Picnic
Recently quoted in ABQ Journal on the current controversy about Billy the Kid, Usmar, who is currently working on biographies of the Kid's adversaries Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan, said the Kid should never receive a pardon, given his role in gunning down lawmen, explaining, "Whatever one thinks about them, they were still the legally constituted lawmen in the county, and he (Billy) killed four of them,"
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